Kill Klaus
by romeosareveryundependable
Summary: Damon and Stefan are dead but there's still work to be done. In the sequel to Stake the Salvatores, Bonnie, Tyler, and Jeremy set their sights on their final target: Klaus.
1. Happy Birthday, Bonnie

**Summary: Damon and Stefan are dead but there's still work to be done. In the sequel to Stake the Salvatores, Bonnie, Tyler, and Jeremy set their sights on their final target, Klaus. **

**I advise you to read StS first.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD. If I did, I like to imagine it would be much better than it is.**

* * *

Happy Birthday, Bonnie

Bonnie flips through acceptance letters, examining the names on all of them. Whitmore, at the top of the heap. The obvious choice, where Caroline and Elena will both be, where Grams taught, where Shane teaches. The University of Chicago. Not so obvious and she wasn't even sure she'd make it into that one. Far away in a big city where she can become invisible and unnoticeable. University of California - Berkeley. Sunshine and hundreds of miles across the country. Virginia State and University of Virginia. Close but not too close. Far enough that she's away but close enough that she can come back.

The sun is just coming up but already she's got Happy Birthday texts from Caroline and Matt, plus a couple of other people from school who Bonnie almost forgot she knew. She almost forgot she had a birthday or that it was this close. Killing Damon and Stefan can make a girl forget about celebrating the day she was born. It snuck up on her. One minute she's contemplating April's death for the hundredth time in between reading acceptance letters then her dad is calling her to let her know she can expect her gift in the mail.

It's been a week since April's funeral and everything Bonnie does still relates to her in some way. April won't ever apply to college. Even now, there's a voice in Bonnie's head that asks, _Do you know what April will never get? An eighteenth birthday._

Jeremy and Tyler are still asleep. As far as they're concerned, she's mostly recovered from what happened in the woods the night they killed Stefan. She's stopped crying, and that must be a good thing. It's the best thing since they've got an Original to kill. They have to grow Jeremy's mark, find the Cure, force it on Klaus, and kill him. It's probably better that she be focused on that particular task more than a girl she killed last week.

She hasn't even told Shane about it. He heard about April as well. She was on the news and everything. The official story was a break in at her house. It would be hard to explain an animal getting in and taking a bite out of her. And even harder to explain a witch who was actually bitten transferring said bite to a girl in the woods and killing her.

The difficulty of such an explanation, which would be an easy one for Shane, is what keeps her from explaining it. It's enough that Tyler and Jeremy know. No one else can find out. But Shane has probably noticed something's off, as she's kept her distance ever since. She knows she'll have to go back eventually. He'll be a help with the cure, Expression will, too. And she needs control, needs it so they don't have a repeat of April Young.

It's past noon when Jeremy and Tyler wake up, their usual Saturday routine. Well, their Saturday routine now that Stefan and Damon are both dead. They'll be right back on Killing Time - early mornings and late nights of tossing around strategies for killing Klaus - soon. It takes awhile for one of them to come upstairs. She waits for the knock on the door.

"Come in," she calls.

It's Tyler.

"Morning," he says. "And happy birthday." He holds out a pint of cookie dough ice cream and a bottle of vodka. There's a bow around the vodka and the sight of it makes her smile. It's the good stuff, too. Not the cheap brand she's always been forced to get.

Bonnie takes them. "Does it really count as a gift if you'll also be using it?"

"Sure it does," Tyler says with a shrug and a smile. "Sometime this week?"

Not tonight because they've already got drinking planned for tonight (which she's actually very excited about, if she makes herself forget April for a minute) but Bonnie wonders how ridiculous it would be to eat the ice cream now. She's been craving it. She hides the vodka in her closet and sets the ice cream on her desk. "It's a date."

Tyler tilts his head to the side and raises his eyebrows. "Is it?"

The way he speaks, his voice, makes her stomach turn into a knot. He stares at her and she stares back. She wonders what he's trying to say with that look.

"I don't know," Bonnie says finally. Since she kissed him on the porch they haven't talked about it. It was in the heat of the moment, smack dab in the middle of her grief ,and Tyler was saying all these sweet things, making her not feel so terrible. As soon as it was over, she felt terrible all over again. Kissing Tyler couldn't bring April back to life.

Tyler nods. "Okay."

He wants her, needs her. And she wants, needs him, too. However, there's still Jeremy and her feelings for him are nearly identical.

Bonnie tries to think of something else to say but she's cut off by the sound of Jeremy's approaching footsteps. Tyler steps back from the door so Jeremy can enter. He hugs her hard and says happy birthday into her ear, pressing a long, thin box into her hand. Jewelry. She likes jewelry. Even if it's not of the human bone variety.

"We have to go grocery shopping really fast," Jeremy says, apparently in no hurry to see her open his gift. He has a thing about that. "But we'll try to make it fast. If not, we'll see you when you get back from your movie."

"I'll see you at Caroline's at two o'clock for my surprise party," Bonnie says.

"You _know_?"

Bonnie smiles at Jeremy's sigh and Tyler's eye roll. They've been trying hard to keep it a secret, but she's noticed them talking quietly to one another. At first she chalked it up to concern for her. There was that, too but there was more to these clandestine conversations than April Young. Caroline hasn't mentioned anything except for her and Elena's promise to take Bonnie to a movie of her choice that afternoon, but they were four when Caroline first decided to throw Bonnie a surprise party for her eighteenth birthday. Just because she made the promise back when they couldn't even spell eighteen doesn't make it any less important in Caroline's eyes. And she can recognize Caroline's manic, busybody state from a mile away.

"As long as you look surprised when you get there," Tyler says, "I don't care." He steps forward to hug her and she smiles as he kisses her cheek. "See you there. We have to go set up."

Jeremy remains when Tyler goes. "I can't believe you've known this whole time."

"It was cute, you guys keeping a secret," she says.

"As long as it was cute," he says before he leans to kiss her cheek. She tries not to think of how purposeful it must be that he doesn't kiss the same cheek Tyler did. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you," she says. She waits until they go to open Jeremy's present. Inside is a silver bracelet. It looks plain at first but when she holds it up to the light she can see words - one word multiple times - engraved across its surface.

Bennett.

* * *

Caroline has volunteered her house for Bonnie's birthday bash and as soon as Jeremy and Tyler get through the door she's barking orders. Jeremy is assigned the task of hanging up some more decorations with Elena while Tyler is directed toward the kitchen to help Matt figure out a precarious situation with the food.

"Hey," Jeremy says, picking up a strand of streamers. "Haven't seen you in awhile."

Elena shrugs her shoulders. "I've just been busy with school and Caroline's had me working nonstop on this party."

"You doing okay otherwise?" Jeremy asks. It's easier, somehow to be around her, to call himself her brother, now that Stefan and Damon are gone. There was a weight on the title before, an invisible addendum. He's Elena's brother _but_ Stefan is her boyfriend. Or he's Elena brother _but_ Damon is her boyfriend. Or he's Elena's brother _but_ she loves both Salvatores. There's always a but. Now there isn't one.

"I'm fine, Jer," Elena says. "It's Bonnie's birthday."

"Yeah," Jeremy says. "If you want to talk though, we can." She hasn't asked him to come back home, not yet anyway. Or maybe she realized he wasn't going to accept that offer.

Elena nods her head and smiles. "Okay."

They hang the rest of the decorations, the Happy Birthday banner and strands of white Christmas lights. Elena's quiet for most of it. Jeremy reminds himself she was in a funk over Damon for what felt like forever. It hasn't been as long as that yet and at least she's out of the house, hanging out with them. This is better than the way it was before.

The doorbell rings but it's too early to be Bonnie.

"That's Shane!" Caroline says, speeding through the living room.

"You invited _Shane_?" Jeremy asks.

"I told him to stop by for the surprise part," Caroline explains. "Come on, he's like Bonnie's...whatever. Who am I to deny her another present?"

"No one should deny Bonnie another present," Elena says, her hands on her hips. She appraises their work and nods in satisfaction.

Shane comes in, looking just as awkward as one would expect a nearly thirty year old man to look in a room full of teenagers. He slides his hands into his pockets. "Hello, all."

Thank God they don't have long to wait before Bonnie gets there because there's absolutely nothing any of them has to say to Shane except for "Hello". Tyler's had more contact with him than the rest of them, after Bonnie, so he goes to talk to him until the clock strikes two and the doorbell rings.

"She's very punctual," Shane comments.

Jeremy and Tyler exchange looks as she comes in, looking suitably shocked with the chorus of "Surprise!". They haven't talked about what happened with Tyler and Bonnie kissing. With killing Stefan and Bonnie killing April, it seemed stupid in comparison. It _is_ stupid in comparison. With all the time they've allowed to pass, Jeremy feels dumb bringing it up now, even though he knows he should. They'll have to figure it out eventually, whatever _it_ is. He's in love with Bonnie but Tyler likes Bonnie. Bonnie and Tyler kissed. Jeremy and Bonnie were - still are? - having sex sometimes. There's a big something to figure out.

For now, it's Bonnie's birthday. She makes her rounds through the room, hugging them all in turn. When she gets to Jeremy, she says into his ear, "Did I look surprised?"

"Very," he assures her.

Shane approaches. "Happy birthday, Bonnie," he says, enveloping her in an awkward hug.

"Caroline invited you?" Bonnie says.

"She said you deserved another present," Shane says with a shrug. "I brought one." If he notices her pendant, the first present he gave her, is missing Shane doesn't mention it. Instead he passes her a small box wrapped in red paper.

"Thank you," Bonnie says.

"And I was hoping to check on you," Shane adds. "We haven't talked in awhile. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Bonnie nods her head vigorously, too enthusiastically perhaps. "I'm great," she says. "I've just been kind of busy lately. With school and figuring out the whole college thing."

"Understandable," Shane says. "Let me know when you want to get back to work."

"I will," Bonnie says. "It'll be soon. We have things to talk about. The cure."

Right, Shane knows things about the cure they need to know. And they're going to need to know them soon. Jeremy looks down at his Mark, which has made it about halfway up his forearm now. They'll also have to get to making this thing grow.

But it's Bonnie's birthday. No business on Bonnie's birthday, Tyler and Jeremy already decided.

Shane nods. "Of course. You know where to find me. Now I should get going." He touches her shoulder and repeats his birthday wishes.

"You don't want to stay for cake?" Bonnie asks.

"I'm not big on cake," Shane answers, "but thanks." He probably just wants to get away from all the teenagers.

"Thanks for coming," Bonnie says. She holds up his present. "And for whatever this is."

"You're welcome," he says. "It was nice seeing you all."

They all say goodbye.

As soon as he's gone, Caroline breaks out the shot glasses and pours one for each of them. They gulp them down in unison. Jeremy would take another but they've already agreed they're going out tonight anyway and he might as well wait. They didn't need to surprise Bonnie with that information They never got to suitably celebrate Stefan's passing and now that it's Bonnie's birthday, there's no better reason to go.

While Bonnie is busy with Caroline and Matt, Jeremy and Tyler sit at the counter together with their empty shot glasses. "You think she's doing okay today?" Tyler asks.

"Not as bad as other days," Jeremy answers. She's smiling more.

"She's still not doing magic," Tyler says. He talks quietly. With the music and the chatter, they're drowned out already.

"Yeah, I know," Jeremy says. They've noticed that much, even if Bonnie hasn't said so out loud. It's like she's afraid the slightest bit of magic is going to make someone else drop dead. What are they supposed to say to her? _You're a witch, Bonnie. Witches are supposed to do magic. Go do magic._

"What should we do?"

"I don't know," Jeremy says. "Let her work it out. She'll come through when we need her."

Bonnie always comes through.

"She looks like she's having a good time," Tyler says.

She does, that's true. Matt's said something funny and her and Caroline are both laughing. Or maybe Bonnie's just faking it. She's good at faking it, they all are.

Elena comes toward them. "Hey," she says.

"Hey," Tyler and Jeremy say together.

"This is fun," she says. "It's good that we're all together like this. We should do it more often. No special occasion needed."

"Yeah," Tyler agrees. "We should." Jeremy knows Tyler would rather not spend any more time with Elena than is absolutely necessary. He won't say it out loud but his feelings for Elena haven't changed just because Damon and Stefan are dead.

Jeremy nods his own assent.

"It's Bonnie's birthday so we shouldn't talk about it today," Elena says, "but we still might have a problem with the hybrid and the witch and the other one. We'll have to make sure we've got all our bases covered."

Jeremy keeps his eyes on Elena. He knows Tyler is doing the same. Don't look away, don't look spooked, don't look anything. "Yeah," Jeremy says. "Definitely. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Elena repeats.

* * *

"Bonnie," Elena says. She's being quiet today and she has been since Stefan died. But she looks good, she looks alive, which is better than she looked after they killed Damon. "Happy birthday." She pulls Bonnie into a hug and squeezes. She's gotten a handle on her strength and she's just as careful as Caroline is. Back when they were human they would try to hug as tight as they could and now it takes an effort just to be gentle.

"Thanks," Bonnie says.

Elena passes Bonnie a paper bag. "It's just a little something," she says. "I thought you might like it."

Bonnie reaches into the mess of tissue paper until her fingers close around something thin and heavy. She pulls it free. It's a picture frame. Inside are two photos. They had to have been six or seven in the first, sitting side by side on what looks like Elena's front porch. They're both in floral dresses and are clutching each other's hands as if for dear life, smiling giant gap-toothed smiles. It was years and a whole mouth of baby teeth ago, but Bonnie feels like she remembers taking it. The second picture is more recent but it was taken before Elena's parents died. They were both still cheerleaders then, at the championship game. They lost that year but you wouldn't know it by this picture. Elena's hair in a high ponytail and Bonnie's into two ponytails, the matching glittery red timberwolves painted on their cheeks, and smiles just as earnest and happy as the other photo, with all their teeth this time.

Bonnie has the same picture in her room.

"That's my favorite one of us," Elena says.

How is it harder to remember _this_ photo than the other one?

Bonnie's fingers brush over the glass. She looks happy, at least. So does Elena. There was never a question then about what they were to each other. "Mine, too."

* * *

"Ready to go to the real party?" Jeremy says, peeking into Bonnie's bedroom. She's standing in front of her mirror in a pair of fitted jeans and a glittery black tank top, her hair hanging long and straight past her shoulders.

"In a minute," she answers. He sees she's holding Qetsiyah's pendant.

"Did Shane give you a pair of matching earrings?" Jeremy asks.

Bonnie laughs and slips the pendant back into her jewelry box. "No. He gave me some kind of rock. The note said it was calcified bone. Well a piece of calcified bone. Qetsiyah's. To witches, it's worth quite the dollar amount." She nods to her nightstand where Jeremy now notices the hunk of white rock, smooth and round.

"Um...cool," Jeremy says, arching his eyebrows. "Dude's really into bones."

She meets his eyes in her mirror and smiles. It fades soon after it appears. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"Nothing," she answers.

"You're still thinking about April."

"When will I not be thinking about April?"

"Someday," Jeremy promises her. Eventually Bonnie _will_ let go of this, he knows she will. Maybe not anytime soon, maybe not within the month, or two months, or the year, but she will.

"Thank you for my bracelet," she says.

It's only then he realizes she's wearing it. His face gets hot."You're welcome," he says. "I thought-I don't know. Cool family. I know it's not human bone but it goes with everything, right?"

It's good to hear Bonnie laughing. "It certainly goes with this outfit." She turns around to look at him and sighs heavily. "I haven't been doing magic."

"We noticed," he says. _  
_

"Time to get over it," she says, like she's trying to psych herself up. "We've got work to do."

"Not tonight we don't," he reminds her. "It's your birthday."

"There's no better time to start then."

She turns and stares at her reflection for awhile longer. He sees her run her fingertips along the bracelet, the etchings of her name. The candle on her bedside table flickers to life.

Then she unscrews a tube of lipgloss and smears it across her lips. "Now I'm ready."

* * *

Bonnie's been throwing them back since they got there. Tyler can't tell if she's just excited because of the occasion or if something else is going on here. She _seems_ be over April dying, or at least moving on. But she hasn't been doing magic. Well, now she is. Jeremy said she lit a candle in her room. Progress is being made. Maybe she's feeling a little better now that she's downing one pink hued drink after the other. For now, what happened to April isn't a factor. They should hold onto this. In the morning, it could be different.

"A toast," Tyler says, holding up his beer, "to Bonnie Bennett on her birthday."

They clink their glasses together. Bonnie's is almost empty.

"This is nice," she says.

Tyler nods. "This _is_ nice."

"Really nice," Jeremy adds.

Bonnie laughs quietly. "It's my birthday," she says. "And it's been a good day actually. I'm here with you guys and I _love_ you guys."

Tyler can't help his gaze moving to Jeremy who seem to have had the same reaction. They look away quickly, focusing their attention back on Bonnie, and Tyler is reminded that they _really_ need to talk. He doesn't think he should mention that Bonnie kissed him a second time on the porch. That'll only make it worse. He's distracted from his thoughts by Bonnie setting her glass down on the table and clearing her throat.

"I wanna dance," she says.

Tyler's about to tell her that she and Jeremy should go and he'll meet them out there once he's finished with his beer. Or finished another two beers. But Bonnie speaks, "But first..." She turns in her chair to face Jeremy. "Come here."

Jeremy blinks. "What?"

Bonnie smiles and extends her hands toward him, reaching for his face. She's balancing on the edge of her chair when she pulls his lips to hers. Jeremy obviously doesn't know where to put his hands, not at first. She caught him off guard. But he eventually lets go of his glass of beer to hold her waist.

Tyler's aware that looking away is probably the best course of action, but he can't. One of Bonnie's hands rakes through Jeremy's hair and Tyler sees the tip of her tongue as it slips into Jeremy's mouth. _Then_ he looks away, down at the contents of his glass, and decides it could be more full than it is. He stands and Bonnie's hand wraps around his wrist. She's smiling as she hops off her stool, twisting out of Jeremy's arms. "Where are _you going?" she asks, sliding her arms around his waist._

"I need a refill," he answers. Bonnie takes his beer from him and finishes it off. He didn't even think she _liked_ beer. As she hands the empty glass back to him, she says, "Yes, you do. After you dance with us." When she raises herself up onto the tips of her toes, he doesn't realize she's going to kiss him until her lips are brushing against his own. He can taste cherry flavored lip gloss, beer, and the fruity mixed taste her drink. It's hard to do but he pulls back, telling himself _not_ to look at Jeremy.

"You're drunk," Tyler says with a shake of his head and an awkward laugh.

"I'm not that drunk," she says. And she does sound eerily sober. "It's my birthday," she reminds him. Her voice sounds in his head, above the thumping bass of the music and the clink of glasses. He has super hearing but all he hears is her. It's been awhile since that's happened. _Help me celebrate, she says._

He really wants to.

Tyler's eyes finally flit to Jeremy who shrugs his shoulders and raises his beer to his mouth. Is _he_ drunk?

"Tyler," Bonnie says, drawing his attention once again. She bites down on her bottom lip, looking up at him expectantly, and he really wants to bite that lip himself.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, it's Bonnie's birthday.

Tyler kisses her.

* * *

They're creating a scene.

Or at least Tyler thinks they are. It feels like everyone should be looking at them. The hybrid, the witch and the hunter. If people aren't looking, then what _are_ they doing? Bonnie's arms are around Tyler's neck and they're so close they might as well be fused together. He wishes they were. When she's not tilting her head back so her neck can receive Jeremy's kisses, she's kissing Tyler. His first kiss with Bonnie could be described as passionate. Maybe. The second was sweet. This one is...He's not sure what this one is. He'll figure that out when he's replaying it in his head tomorrow, probably in the middle of a cold shower.

Bonnie doesn't stop dancing while she kisses him. No matter what they're doing, Bonnie dances. Her mouth is hot and forceful against his, her tongue moving against his, and her hands are everywhere. They stroke the back of his neck, ghost across his ears, glide around his waist, underneath his shirt. Everywhere.

And when she decides she doesn't want to kiss Tyler anymore, she turns around and kisses Jeremy. He should be jealous. Every time she kisses Jeremy, Tyler should be jealous. But he's not because Bonnie keeps her hand on top of his, trained on her bare stomach where her shirt rides up and he can feel the warmth of her skin, damp with sweat. And Jeremy doesn't seem to mind it when Bonnie kisses Tyler.

In the morning, that'll be different.

For now, Tyler lowers his mouth to Bonnie's neck. He kisses a path to her earlobe which he pulls between his teeth. He can hear Bonnie's sigh and feel her fingers tighten on his hand. When he raises his eyes, he can see clear across Jeremy's shoulder.

Elena.

At a table in the corner with a drink in front of her.

Her eyes on them.

Tyler releases Bonnie's waist and squints his eyes in the direction of the table. No one's there. In the midst of the gyrating couples and flickering strobe lights, he might have imagined it. There are a lot of brunettes with pin-straight hair in Virginia, and half of them are in this bar. Still, he moves toward the corner. Bonnie might have grasped for him but he's not sure. He navigates the maze of dancing strangers until he reaches the table. It looks like no one was ever sitting here. He runs his hand along the flat surface and feels a wet spot, a ring left by a glass.

Tyler's eyes scan the dance floor, searching for a familiar face. Elena's not the type to hang out in bars, not alone at least. And with both Salvatores dead, the only people she'd be there with are Bonnie and Caroline. Caroline's nowhere in sight and Bonnie's with them, so what reason does Elena have for being here, at the same bar as them, two towns over?

"Excuse me," a voice says. "This is our table."

He turns. Standing behind him are two girls, one with a mane of shining blond hair, pulled up into a ponytail. The other, the one who spoke, has straight brown hair and giant, dark eyes. From a distance and in this light, it would be easy to mistake her for Elena.

"Sorry," Tyler says, with a sound of relief. Who wants to explain to Elena why he, Bonnie, and Jeremy are doing what they're doing? He steps away from the table and looks to the dance floor again. His eyes land on Bonnie.

She's noticed he's missing, her back to Jeremy now. Her hand is on top of his, keeping him in place and moving to the rhythm she's created. When she catches Tyler's gaze, she lifts her arm and motions to him. _Come back_, she says.

Tyler smiles. _I'm coming_.

When he rejoins them, Bonnie slides her arms around his neck and kisses him again. He takes a gentle bite of her lower lip this time.

* * *

**And we're back! This one ended up being extra long. Think of it as a celebratory length thing. Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing what you guys think so far. There is a bit (a lot) of love triangle here. Bonnie's feelings for Jeremy and Tyler are something that she's gradually going to have to sort out and eventually she'll have to make a choice. OT3s are fun but can they last forever?**

**Also, the link to the Stake the Salvatores mix is now posted on my profile.**


	2. We're All Friends

We're All Friends

_How far are we going to take this?_

Bonnie means to say it out loud but she doesn't get to because Tyler's mouth finds hers, diverging from its path along her shoulder, and swallowing up her words before she can get them out. Her eyes are closed but she knows it's him. When Tyler kisses her, his tongue always brushes the roof of her mouth, and she always - _always _- leans forward as if to taste more of him. Her fingers reach to touch his chest and it feels cold beneath her hand. And she knows the firm yet gentle touch on the small of her back. Jeremy's fingers and the intricate rhythm they play across her skin is as familiar to her as breathing.

The cab ride back was quiet. There was no kissing and except for Tyler and Jeremy each holding one of her hands, there was no touching.

It wasn't until they got back to her house and inside that Tyler kissed her. Jeremy was behind her, pushing the front door closed before placing a lingering kiss at the base of her throat.

And they're still standing there.

The only reason Bonnie's still upright is because of Jeremy and Tyler, or else her knees would have given out awhile ago.

___What are we doing?_

She wishes they were back in the bar. There it was dark, the music was loud, and Tyler was paying for her drinks. There was no reason to think, only to feel. She wasn't thinking about April being dead or having to kill Klaus or the mixed bag the past few days have been. She just wants to feel Tyler's and Jeremy's mouths and hands on her. The only thoughts she wants to have is of how good it feels, how badly she wants them to never stop, and how glad she is that they're together tonight -every night - because it feels like Tyler and Jeremy the only ones who know her anymore.

It's her birthday after all.

Or it was. It's past midnight now.

Again with the thinking.

Tyler and Jeremy have no problem not thinking. Bonnie wants to be like them.

But she can't breathe. And she doesn't think she really wants to if the reason she can't is because she's being too well kissed to inhale properly. She pulls her lips from Tyler's momentarily. Her eyes flutter open long enough to see his grin before he kisses her cheek instead. Jeremy catches her mouth next, his tongue flicking across her bottom lip. She hums as she accepts his tongue into her mouth. His hands slide around her waist and then lower, low enough to slide into the back pockets of her jeans.

Or at least she _thinks_ his hands are in her back pockets. They could just be on her ass.

But it's the same thing isn't it?

_Stop. Thinking._

Jeremy tugs her closer so she's pressed against him. All of him. Even a very specific part of his anatomy that she's become incredibly familiar with recently. He's hard against her thigh, with only two layers of jeans separating them. Tyler's maneuvered to her side, a better position for trailing his lips along her cheek. She rocks into him, curious to know if he's having the same reaction.

He is.

Bonnie's never had a threesome. She's never even seriously considered a threesome. It was always just a joke with Caroline and Elena. One of those things where two guys are hot and you say you wouldn't mind sleeping with them both at the same time but it's never _real_. There's never a chance. But with Tyler and Jeremy there, both touching her and kissing her and eliciting semi-embarrassing sounds from her, it certainly seems real. Her fingers are tucked into the waistband of Jeremy's jeans (though she doesn't remember putting them there), close enough to brush the top of his underwear. If she wants to - if she really, _really_ wants to - her hand can slip inside and this whole thing will take a turn even sharper than the one it took back at the bar.

If it was just her and Jeremy that's what would happen, with little to no thought, Bonnie would do it. Touching Jeremy is natural and familiar. She'd had sex with Jeremy plenty of times but never with a passenger. And she's never thought about it either, not even with Tyler who is sweet - incredibly sweet - and has become more of a fixture than she ever imagined he would be. Having sex with Jeremy is old - enjoyable, exciting,_ orgasmic_ - news, but sex with Tyler would be new and strange and awkward like first times are.

Bonnie's almost certain she'd enjoy it.

Having sex with Jeremy_ and_ Tyler is something else entirely.

She's thinking again.

And she's not going to be able to stop.

She detaches her lips from Jeremy's. "Wait."

Everything stops. Jeremy and Tyler both let her go and take steps away from her like she's just told them she's radioactive. She finally gets a good look at the both of them. Even in the dim light of her living room, she can see all three of them are a mess. Wrinkled clothes. Ruffled hair. Swollen lips. She can taste them both on her tongue, and her skin still burns where they left their respective trails of overlapping kisses. Her shirt is still up over her belly button where one of them pushed it during the course of their making out. She tugs it back down.

"I'm sorry," she says. "We can't."

It's not her birthday anymore anyway.

Avoiding Jeremy's eyes and not looking back at Tyler, she goes up the stairs.

* * *

In the morning Bonnie hears Tyler in the bathroom, headed to the shower. She's been up for awhile, listening to see which of the boys will wake up first, which one she'll apologize to first for being so unbelievably ridiculous last night. Tyler gets the honor. She rolls out of bed and pads into the hallway. He hasn't turned on the shower yet so he's probably still got clothes on at least. She knocks and it only takes him a second to pull it open.

"Morning," he says. It's probably because he's a hybrid that he doesn't look the least bit tired after last night, when she barely slept and probably looks like she was just dug herself out of a hole. At least he still has clothes on. She doesn't think she'd be able to deal with the sight of Tyler's naked chest, or naked anything else, after last night. Suddenly she tries to remember the last time she saw Tyler shirtless. It was a while ago.

_Focus_, she reminds herself.

"Morning," she says finally, feeling stupid already.

The corner of his mouth twitches. Under any other, non-awkward, circumstances he'd be making fun of her. "Do you need to get in here?" he asks.

"No, I just wanted to apologize about last night," Bonnie says. "That was weird, I know. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Tyler says. "It was fun."

Despite the weirdness, now that's it's daytime and they're all completely sober and there's no music, it _was_ fun.

"Yeah but I shouldn't have put you guys in that position," she says, shaking her head slightly. "I don't know what I was thinking." She does know what she was thinking, but she doesn't know _why_ she thought it was a good idea to act on it. Tyler and Jeremy, sitting on either side of her at the bar and wishing her a happy birthday while she became more and more aware of how she knew what it felt like to kiss them both. And how she wanted to kiss them again. She doesn't know where she expected it to go except for here, in this bathroom, issuing an apology.

_I'm such an idiot_.

Tyler shrugs his shoulders. "It was your birthday, Bonnie. You get whatever you want on your birthday."

There was a time when she was little when she really, really wanted a puppy. That lasted through at least two birthdays, but she never got one.

"That's not how that works," she says.

"It did last night," Tyler says. The way he says "last night" makes her stomach flip and it doesn't help that he chooses that exact moment to lick his lips.

"Well," she says, her eyes fixed on his bottom lip where his tongue had just skated across it a millisecond ago, "it won't happen again." She remembers him biting down on her lip last night. There's something about that, him being able to do a lot of damage with a bite, and choosing to take a harmless, barely there nibble instead. It's a something that makes her want him to do it again.

"Okay," Tyler says. "Don't worry about it. It was just a thing. Between friends."

A thing between friends. Okay. That's cool.

"We have to go to Elena's today," he says.

She's glad he changed the subject.

"Yeah," she says. "I know."

"We've got to start growing Jeremy's mark, too," he adds.

"I know," she repeats.

So much to do. So little time.

She remembers the deadline Tyler gave his mom. Graduation. They've got a few months left but how long is it going to take to grow Jeremy's mark to fullness? Bonnie thinks about the stack of acceptance letters in her bedroom and the places she could go. She can't go if Klaus is still alive. There's _so_ much to do.

"I'll let you take your shower," she says. She turns and heads back into her room. It's after she hears the water running that she also hears Jeremy downstairs. She inhales and goes down.

* * *

"It's fine, Bonnie," Jeremy assures her. She sits at the kitchen table, watching him pluck stuff out of the cabinets for breakfast. One of her hands is in her hair. "It was just a thing. We're all friends, you know?"

"That's what Tyler said," Bonnie says.

Jeremy doesn't know what to expect from his next conversation with Tyler. What does one expect to say to the other third of the threesome that almost happened last night? Maybe he'll just let Tyler do the talking. Or maybe they don't have to talk about it all.

That sounds good, too.

"I'm still really sorry," she says.

Jeremy laughs to himself. "We were all there, Bonnie. We knew what we were doing." One minute they're drinking, subdued but celebrating, and then they're _really_ celebrating. Bonnie celebrates by kissing boys, by kissing him, and apparently by kissing Tyler. There should be some anger involved, Jeremy's sure of that. He was certainly angry when he heard they kissed the first time. Now he doesn't really feel anything about it.

Tyler wasn't the only one getting kissed by Bonnie.

Somehow that makes it better.

When they hear Tyler get out of the shower, Bonnie goes up to take hers while Jeremy eats his cereal. He hopes Tyler won't come down until Bonnie's back at least. He's not so lucky.

"Morning," Tyler says when he hits the landing.

"Morning," Jeremy says, staring down at his bowl of cornflakes.

Tyler makes his own bowl of cereal and sits down next to Jeremy at the table to eat it. They don't speak.

Jeremy can't determine if the list of things they have to talk about just got longer or if, since both things on that very short list were about Bonnie, it's stayed about the same length.

Either way, he's comfortable with procrastinating further.

Jeremy showers when Bonnie's done. They don't get the chance to linger awkwardly all together because Elena sends a text asking them to come over.

* * *

They're all gathered around Elena's dining room table. Matt, Caroline, Tyler, Jeremy, Bonnie, and Elena. It's all business. If Caroline's place is the party room, Elena's is the conference room. Matt and Caroline are at one side of the table and Bonnie, Jeremy and Tyler are on the other. Elena sits between them, at the head of the table, with her hands folded in front of her.

"Does your mom know anything more?" Bonnie asks, looking to Caroline.

Caroline shrugs. "Stefan was staked before the house went up, but we figured that already."

"What about a motive?" Matt asks. "Why kill Stefan? No offense, Elena, but Damon I get. He was a dick." Elena looks down at the table and doesn't say anything. "But why Stefan?"

_Why _not_ Stefan_? Tyler thinks.

"We have to talk to Klaus," Caroline says. "All the hybrids were turned by him so he's _met_ the hybrid, right? He knows this person."

Tyler doesn't want anyone going anywhere _near_ Klaus. He's had enough of him to last an eternal lifetime, and the only time he wants to see Klaus is when he, Bonnie, and Jeremy are killing him. And even now Tyler still doesn't want Klaus anywhere near Caroline. She may think she's somewhat safe with him, courtesy of Klaus' little obsession, but Tyler knows better. If Klaus is willing to terrorize his own siblings, he'll kill Caroline in a heartbeat.

He certainly killed Tyler in one.

"Klaus killed all the hybrids," Bonnie points out.

"Except Tyler," Elena says.

Tyler's eyes cut to Elena, at the head of the table, like she's reigning over something, like she's in charge here. He looks her in the eye, thinking of the girl from the night before, the one he mistook for Elena at the bar. "Except me," he repeats. "I'm the last. Klaus would never let a hybrid just walk away after being turned, not that we could have without breaking the sire bond. The hybrid has to be dead."

"You knew the pack," Elena says, staring back. "Who could have done it?"

Tyler shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know. I didn't think any of them were capable of it. I mean, Kim was a little bloodthirsty at times but she didn't even know Damon and Stefan. I didn't think any of them did."

If they had, they probably would have wanted Stefan and Damon dead, too.

"If the hybrid's dead then who killed April?" Matt asks.

"In this town?" Tyler says. "Really? Vampires are always passing through here."

"We don't know what the third one is either," Caroline says. "It could have been them. If it's a vampire."

"Could be anything," Jeremy says.

Caroline sighs heavily, annoyed. "So we're stuck."

Tyler's glad they covered their tracks at least this well. There's nothing that would point to them. Their most glaring piece of evidence, Tyler merely being alive, is easily glossed over. Who would accuse him for surviving Klaus' massacre? And why would _Tyler _kill Stefan and Damon? He reminds himself not to look too satisfied at the moment.

"No we're not," Elena says. "What if we _did _ask Klaus for help?_"_

They all turn to look at Elena.

"_Why_ would we do that?" Tyler questions, squinting his eyes at her. "He killed all the hybrids. How else could he possibly help?"

"He knows people," Elena answers. "He might be willing. He...cared about Stefan in a way. And he's been around longer than any of us have. He may be our best chance. If we tell him we're looking he may be able to point us toward _something__. _ Or at least someone who can help us."

Grief must have driven Elena out of her mind.

"Would he point us toward this person before or after he starts killing us all?"

"Klaus has been willing to work with us before," Elena says, turning her gaze on him again. "He was on board about the cure. And he still is."

By that logic, the only person at this table who is slightly safe from Klaus is Elena. So of course she's willing to bring him into this, no matter how dangerous he's proven himself to be to the rest of them.

"Klaus wants the cure to turn you back into a blood bag," Tyler reminds her. "He's not doing it out of the goodness of his heart."

Bonnie rests a hand on his knee under the table. It's meant to be calming, that he knows, but Bonnie's touch may never be calming again, especially not after last night. He remembers being hard and pressed against her last night, wanting to be closer, willing to do anything to get closer.

"We don't even know what these people want," Jeremy says. "What if they're done?"

"What if they're _not_?" Caroline says. "We sat back and thought they were finished after Damon and look what happened! Stefan's dead."

_A real tragedy. _

"So is April," Matt chimes.

"And we _don't_ know what they want," Elena says. "They could be coming after us next. I'm not gonna sit here and _hope _they're finished. They could be picking us off one by one."

"Stefan and Damon were the strongest," Caroline says. "If they got them out of the way first all they'd have to deal with is us."

Jeremy makes a face. "Because we're _so _defenseless."

Caroline rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean. Damon and Stefan were over a century old! Together we're pretty formidable, I guess. But these guys killed Damon and Stefan easily."

Tyler wouldn't say it was _easy_.

"We're not gonna stand much of a chance," Caroline says. "Not against three of them. Or two."

She's freaking out.

"Caroline," Bonnie says gently, comfortingly, "we're gonna be fine."

Yes, they're all going to be fine.

"I need a break," Elena says suddenly. She stands and goes into the kitchen. While Bonnie focuses on assuring Caroline of their safety and Jeremy and Matt both try to help, Tyler gets up to follow Elena.

"Look," he says, "I don't think we should risk involving Klaus. We can handle this. I mean we should at least try." _  
_

"We are trying," she says, "and it's not working. We don't have anything to go on. Damon and Stefan are dead. We can't sit here and wait to see who'll be next."

She busies herself with the dishes, scrubbing at a skillet with a sponge. She's going to tear a hole in it the way she's going.

"Klaus doesn't care about anyone but himself," Tyler says.

"He's helping us with the cure," Elena says, still scrubbing. "He's our most powerful ally."

"And our worst enemy," Tyler insists.

Elena spins around. "An enemy who can help us take on the people who murdered our friends."

_Your friends_, he wants to say. _Damon and Stefan were _your_ friends._

Instead Tyler says, "Klaus doesn't do anything for anyone if it won't benefit him, too. If he agrees to help, what do you think he's going to want in return?"

There's no shortage of things Klaus could demand of them. Somewhere down the line, he could find a use for any one of them. Tyler's done being indebted to Klaus. And he's certainly not going to get in that hole because Elena wants Klaus to find _him. _

"We won't know," Elena says, "until we ask him."

"What's going on?" Caroline stands in the doorway, looking back and forth between Elena and Tyler concernedly.

"Just making sure Elena knows my opinion on this Klaus thing," Tyler says.

He and Caroline have barely spoken since she found out about Bonnie, not about anything important anyway. A party invite and some decorating demands don't necessarily count as a conversation. He wonders what she'd think if she found out about last night. She takes a step further into the room.

"We don't have to decide anything right now," Caroline says. "We can sleep on it. Right, Elena?"

Elena looks impatient. "Right, Caroline." She throws down the sponge. It splashes in the dishwater. "I'm going upstairs. You guys can stay or let yourselves out or whatever."

When she reaches the door, Tyler calls out to her. "What'd you do last night? After the party?"

Elena turns back around, an eyebrow arched. "Came home. Why?"

"Thought I saw you somewhere," Tyler answers casually. "Guess not."

"Guess not," she echoes. Then she leaves.

Tyler glances back to Caroline who shrugs her shoulders. "She's working through it, you know. We're all kinda desperate right now."

He knows all about desperation.

He turns to go back into the living room but Caroline stops him. "I know you and Elena aren't _best_ friends - and you weren't on good terms with Damon and Stefan either really - but can you cut her some slack? They were important to her."

"I know, Caroline," he sighs.

"Tyler," she says. "I know we're weird right now, too, but we're still friends. We're in this together. All of us."

He knows who he's in this with. Caroline doesn't really fall into that category anymore.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where you're never totally together.

* * *

"And if Klaus decides to help look for _us_?" Jeremy asks, as soon as they get back to Bonnie's. The drive back was quiet, all of them too deep in thought to say anything. Besides, no place feels as safe for talking as Bonnie's house. It's just better to wait until they get there. _  
_

"Elena might see reason," Bonnie says, sitting down at the kitchen table. It's like she's trying to keep her distance from them, now that they're all alone again, like they'll start acting out scenes from last night any minute now. "I'll talk to her again tonight."

"But if she doesn't see reason?" Tyler asks. "And Klaus gets involved?"

"We knew he might," Bonnie says.

"Yeah, we knew he _might__,_" Jeremy says. "Stefan's been dead for a while now and Klaus doesn't seem too broken up about it. The guy's been pretty wrapped up in his own shit anyway."

The Stefan who died wasn't Klaus' buddy Stefan. He was Elena's boyfriend and Damon's brother Stefan, and even if Klaus would have applauded Stefan's final act (tricking a Bennett witch and getting a good bite in), he'd never find out about it.

"Let's assume Klaus does step in," Tyler says. "How covered are we?"

Klaus is a nuisance on a good day. On a bad one, he's a force. And he _is_ old. The list of people he knows could be miles long and the people on that list who would be easily threatened into pointing him in a helpful direction has to be just as long.

"The witch," Bonnie says, "who helped Stefan. We have to find her."

"And do what?" Jeremy says. "Take her out?"

Even if they could - which they probably could, if Bonnie helped - it hardly seems fair to condemn a witch just for being sought out by Stefan.

Tyler rolls his eyes but laughs a little.

"No," Bonnie says with her own small smile. "We just need to talk to her and see if she'll stay quiet if someone comes looking." She shakes her head slightly. "We should have done it sooner."

But then they got distracted with April being dead, too distracted to take a road trip to the Big Easy to search for the witch who helped Stefan identify them.

"We might have to pay her," Bonnie says.

"I've got money," Tyler says.

"Rub that in," Jeremy comments and Tyler responds with a shrug and a smile.

_This isn't too awkward_, Jeremy thinks.

"If we leave someone's going to know," Tyler says, "and tomorrow's Monday. Should we risk someone asking questions?"

Bonnie shakes her head and bites down on her bottom lip. She snaps her fingers. "There might be someone else who could go."

Jeremy scrapes the sides of his brain for someone who'd be willing to pay a visit to New Orleans for them. He comes up blank. "Who?"

"Lucy."

* * *

**There's method in Elena's madness though said method (and her plans now that she knows the truth) will not be immediately forthcoming. Thank you for reading and reviewing (I love, love, love reviews). **


	3. Who Doesn't Love Lucy?

**Lucy's baaaaack. And if you don't love her, then don't tell me. Your reviews are greatly appreciated and a joy to read! **

* * *

Who Doesn't Love Lucy?

Bonnie doesn't know why she's so nervous. She's calling family, a cousin who specifically gave her a number for the purpose of calling at some point in time. Still, she's nervous and she paces the length of her bedroom. For a moment she considers if it's possible Lucy could have forgotten that she gave Bonnie her phone number. She tugs on her new bracelet, tracing over the words.

Bennett. Bennett. Bennett.

Bonnie Bennett. Lucy Bennett.

Bennett.

"Hello?"

"Lucy?" Bonnie says. Who else would it be, answering Lucy's phone, with Lucy's voice? She's such an idiot. "It's Bonnie."

"Bonnie!" Lucy exclaims. "It's good to hear from you. How's it going?"

"Good," Bonnie answers, relaxing a little.

"I heard your little town is Salvatore free," Lucy says. "Good work." She sounds how Bonnie would imagine Grams might sound, or Abby, if she was actually a parent. Proud.

Bonnie can't help but smile. "Thanks. That's actually why I'm calling. Kind of. I need a favor." It comes out like a question.

"Name it."

Bonnie's surprised by Lucy's eagerness.

"Before he died, Stefan met a witch in New Orleans who told him what we were doing," Bonnie explains. "She knows about us now and we need to know if she's going to be a problem. We think someone might come looking for information about what happened and she has it so..."

"You want _me_ to see if she's a problem?"

"If you don't mind."

"I don't," Lucy says. "You caught me at a good time. I'm in Alabama and I've been looking for a change of scenery."

Bonnie wonders what it would be like to have the same nomadic existence as Lucy. Hopping from one place to the next, crossing one state line after another and figuring it out along the way. "Why are you in Alabama?"

"Got a new boyfriend," Lucy sighs. "Well, I got a new _ex_-boyfriend. This'll give me an excuse to make it official."

Bonnie smiles to herself. Maybe she'll make calling Lucy a regular thing. She's so _not_ Mystic Falls. She came, she left, and now she's in Alabama. Bonnie can do that, too. She can leave. She can kill Klaus and leave. It's possible.

"Anyway, you got a name?"

"No," Bonnie says. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Probably," Lucy says, "for someone who isn't me. But I am me, so it'll be fine. I'll find her, whoever she is."

Bonnie sits down on the edge of her bed, relieved. "Thank you. If she wants money, Tyler's got plenty so that shouldn't be too much of a problem."

"Cute _and_ loaded. And he's still not your boyfriend?"

"Well, that's gotten complicated," Bonnie says, surprised that she said so. She can't tell anyone about what's going on with Tyler and Jeremy. She can't tell Elena, who will surely be horrified at the thought of Bonnie kissing Jeremy and Tyler both, on the same night, with the other standing right there, and kissing her somewhere else. And whatever progress Bonnie and Caroline have made will be shattered. Even though Lucy is hundreds of miles away, doing who knows what, at least Bonnie can tell her something.

There might be some other things Bonnie could tell Lucy. Like what she did to April.

"You have to teach me your ways, little cousin," Lucy says. "All the men I meet are flops."

Bonnie laughs. As if she has ways.

"And Bonnie?" Lucy says.

"Hmm?"

"Happy Birthday."

"Thanks," Bonnie says. "How'd you know?"

"Your mom told me."

"You've seen her? Again?" Lucy's managed to see Abby more than Bonnie ever has. And Bonnie now remembers more Happy Birthdays from Lucy than she does from her own mother.

"Just for a second," Lucy says. "She was in Atlanta for awhile. She was thinking about coming to see you or something but she didn't think you'd want to see her."

"She was right," Bonnie says bitterly. Wouldn't that have been a stellar birthday surprise? Abby on her doorstep in all her abandoning glory.

"How about I don't tell her you said that?" Lucy says. Bonnie can hear her smile. "I'll head to New Orleans by tonight and I'll give you a call when I find something. Consider this your birthday gift. Tell your boys I say hello."

* * *

Once Bonnie's gotten the okay from Lucy, she's in a much better mood. She heads back to Elena's, on a mission to convince her that enlisting Klaus' help is a terrible idea. If anyone can do it, it's Bonnie so Tyler's not _that_ worried. He's still kind of worried because he has no idea what Elena's thinking these days. Not that he knew what he was thinking other days.

It leaves Jeremy and Tyler in the house alone, both in the living room.

"Are we going to talk?" Tyler asks.

"I dunno," Jeremy says. "Are we?"

"I guess."

Jeremy sits down in the armchair across from the couch where Tyler sits "Okay."

"We're friends, right?" Tyler asks.

"Right."

"Are we gonna stay friends?" Tyler asks. "Because you were really mad when I told you about kissing Bonnie the first time. And you had a right to be," he adds quickly. "I don't want us to not be friends."

Jeremy rolls his eyes like it's a stupid question. "We're friends, Tyler. After everything that happened, that kiss didn't seem so urgent anyway. And then last night was...what it was."

_Yeah. _

After last night, there's no doubting what either of them feels for Bonnie.

"Last night was unexpected," Tyler says.

"That's an understatement."

But last night is over and Bonnie says it'll never happen again. It's the future they should be worried about. Everything has changed, or could have changed, if last night had gone any further. Everything may be changed anyway.

"I can't just _stop_ liking her," Tyler says. When they kissed that day in her kitchen and hours later on the front porch, it was mutual. There was something there, even if Bonnie doesn't know what it is, even if Tyler isn't sure what they're going to do about it, it exists. And she kissed him last night, as hungrily as he kissed her. She wanted Tyler to kiss her. And who wouldn't kiss Bonnie if she wanted them to?

She also wanted Jeremy to.

"We'll just let her figure it out," Jeremy says, "whenever she does that. In the meantime, if she kisses me again, am I allowed to kiss her back?"

That's a good question.

"If she kisses me, am _I_ allowed to kiss her back?"

Jeremy doesn't hesitate. "You are if I am."

"You are."

Silence.

Tyler nods his head. "Fine."

"Fine."

"And we're okay?"

Jeremy cracks a smile. "We're okay."

Tyler smiles, too. "Good." He's quiet for a minute. "So, do you wanna make out?"

Jeremy tries to keep a straight face but fails. "I always knew you had a crush on me, Lockwood."

They're both still laughing when Bonnie comes in, her hair tousled by the wind. "What's so funny?" she asks, shrugging out of her jacket.

"Nothing," Tyler and Jeremy at the same time, swallowing down laughter. Bonnie, after her frantic apology earlier, might not find it as funny as they do. "Weren't you going to Elena's?" Tyler asks.

"She wasn't there," Bonnie answers. "I called her but she said she wanted to be by herself for awhile. I'll try again later. Pizza for dinner?"

* * *

At school the next morning Bonnie finds Elena and Caroline standing outside together, talking near some of the tables that they frequent when it's warmer out. They're deserted in this chilly weather, the perfect spot for private conversations. Bonnie bends her steps toward them. When she gets there, she sees that Caroline and Elena are having a bit of an argument.

"What's going on?" she asks, looking back and forth. Caroline is wearing her familiar annoyed expression and Elena looks tired and impatient.

"Nothing," Elena says. "Caroline's freaking out because I didn't return her calls last night. Even though I just told her I just needed to be by myself."

"We can't just fall off each other's radars like that," Caroline insists. "Someone killed Stefan and Damon. We don't know _who, _we don't know_why,_ so we can't just go be alone whenever we want. One of us could end up staked next."

Bonnie's really wishes Caroline wasn't worrying. If she could assure Caroline of her safety, of all of them being perfectly, completely safe, she would.

"Caroline, stop it," Bonnie sighs. "You're going to drive yourself crazy. We're working on it, okay?"

Caroline doesn't look convinced. "Did Tyler say anything more about the Klaus thing?"

This is the first time Caroline and Bonnie have talked about Tyler since the day at the Grill. Otherwise, neither of them brings him up. When they're together, Tyler might as well not exist. For now it's better to pretend he doesn't. It's even better to pretend the feelings Tyler has for her, and the feelings Bonnie has for him, don't exist either.

"Other than he doesn't think we should do it?" Bonnie says. "No."

"What do you think?" Elena asks.

"I think Klaus will be more trouble than he's worth," Bonnie says.

"So you agree with Tyler?" Caroline says.

"Yes, I agree with Tyler," Bonnie says, wondering if this will become an argument later on. "Klaus _might_ be a short-term solution but he's definitely a long-term problem."

"Well, he's been a problem for this long," Elena says.

"And it wasn't him who killed Stefan and Damon," Caroline adds. "So how much worse can it get, even in the long term? I'd rather we take our chances with Klaus, whose brand of bad guy we know than these other people who could be planning _anything_." _  
_

"Klaus could also be planning anything," Bonnie says. "Even if he does agree to help, what comes after?"

"If the witch and the hybrid and their little friend come back," Caroline says, "we'll have help."

"We can handle ourselves," Bonnie insists. "But we can't trust Klaus." She looks to Elena for some kind of recognition, some flicker of understanding that this is a bad idea. "The only reason you're still alive is because Klaus needs your blood to make more hybrids. And the only reason you're alive," she nods to Caroline, "is because he's obsessed with you and that's _barely_ enough. We're stuck with him for this cure thing but we don't need him for this. Even if he finds them, how are we to know he won't just help them do whatever it is they're trying to do?"

Caroline looks hesitant now but Elena's gaze remains steady. She's always been this way. Once she digs in her heels, there's no moving her.

But this time Bonnie will move her. She has to, for her own sake.

"Elena," Bonnie says. "We're gonna be fine. I'm more powerful now, more powerful than I've been since the dead witches. Stefan and Damon weren't the backbone of this group. If someone comes for us, we'll handle them ourselves. You guys plus me with Tyler and Jeremy. We're fine."_  
_

"You're a good witch, Bonnie," Elena says, "but-"

"There are no buts," Bonnie says. She can take on an Original if she wants to (and she does want to). "If they come back, if they come after us, we'll handle it. _I'll_ handle it."

It annoys her that she's talking like there's an actual threesome out there planning to hurt them. And it annoys her even more that she has to prove to Elena and Caroline that she's capable of defending them against this nonexistent threat. It annoys her that Caroline thinks they're weaker without Stefan and Damon, when Bonnie's the strongest of all of them. She's the Bennett witch. People like her made them. She doesn't need vampires to be strong and she's certainly never needed Stefan or Damon. If there was a real trio - a real hybrid, witch, and hunter - gunning for them, Bonnie would deal with it. Like she deals with everything else, like she didn't deal with the Gilbert device (though she certainly could have), like she almost did with Klaus (which she would have if Elijah hadn't changed his mind), like she _always_ does. Like she dealt with Damon and then Stefan. If they are ever in danger again, she'll deal with it.

Caroline folds her arms across her chest and sighs. Elena doesn't move.

"Guys," Bonnie sighs, "come on."

Caroline bites down on her lip and gives Elena a sidelong glance. "Elena?"

Elena holds Bonnie's gaze. Bonnie can almost see the wheels turning in her head, sorting this whole thing out, weighing her words.

"I think we should still do it," Elena says. "I don't want to risk any of us. And Caroline's right. We _know_ Klaus even if we don't know these people. We know what Klaus wants, and we can leverage that. Whoever killed Stefan and Damon might not want anything but a trail of bodies. Ours. We're not giving it to them."

The bell rings and Elena starts walking toward the main entrance without another word. Caroline follows after her. With a sigh, Bonnie goes, too.

* * *

"It didn't work," Bonnie says, plopping down on the sofa next to Tyler. His feet are propped up on the coffee table and there's a book open across his lap that he's not reading. She tried making Elena see sense at lunch, too. All she got from that was Elena's promise not to decide anything just yet and her assertion that she wasn't going to wait forever to talk to Klaus. "Elena still wants to go to Klaus."

Tyler sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Now what?"

"Jeremy?"

He's her brother. Family appeals to Elena.

"It's worth a shot," Tyler says.

"Where is he?"

"Shower."

Bonnie will wait until that's done. For now she sits with Tyler, curling her legs up to her chest while they watch some documentary on a giant squid. When she asks him why he's watching it, he says nothing else was on. She doesn't insist he turn the channel.

Jeremy comes down later, drying his hair with a towel. He comes around to peer at the TV screen. "Why are you watching this?"

"Nothing's on," Bonnie says. "You have to talk to Elena."

"Bonnie's pitch didn't work," Tyler chimes, not taking his eyes from the screen.

Jeremy nods. "I'll call her now and see if she's home. Enjoy your squid."

"We will, thank you," Tyler says as Bonnie's phone starts to ring. She expects it to be Elena or maybe Caroline, one of them coming to their senses. It's Lucy. She snatches up the phone in a hurry.

"Lucy?" she says. "Did you find her?"

Tyler turns off the squid and faces Bonnie, who puts Lucy on speaker. Jeremy hurries back over to lean over the back of the couch and listen.

"Ramona Kincaid. That's your witch," Lucy says. "I found where she _used_ to be."

Used to be?

Bonnie glances to Tyler and Jeremy who look similarly bewildered.

"Where is she now?" Bonnie asks.

"Couldn't tell you," Lucy says. "She worked out of a little store down here but the whole place has been cleaned out. I already checked the storage space she rented, and there's nothing there about you. I think you might have spooked her. She cleansed the whole place. I couldn't get a read on her. Congratulations on being terrifying."

Jeremy looks kind of proud. Tyler notices and whacks his arm but he's smiling a little, too. "Thank you," Bonnie sighs, which earns her a nudge from Tyler. "Anything else?"

If Ramona Kincaid is hiding from them, then it's unlikely Klaus will be able to find her either. A witch will certainly have a better time of staying hidden than the average person.

"I'm still looking around," Lucy assures her. "I'm going to see if anyone here is willing to talk to me. If they're not, I might be able to magic it out of them."

"Be careful," Bonnie says.

Lucy laughs. "You're telling _me_ to be careful? I'm not the one targeting Originals, now am I?"

Bonnie smiles down at the phone.

"Am I on speaker?" Lucy asks.

"Yeah, want me to take you off?"

"No," Lucy says. "I just wanted to know if your boys were around."

"They're here."

"Hello, boys." Lucy's voice takes on the flirtatious lilt Bonnie remembers from the vampire bar where they met awhile back.

"Hello," Tyler says. He remembers that tone, too. Jeremy says "Hi" and even waves a little, like he's forgotten Lucy can't see him.

"Still handsome?" Lucy questions.

Bonnie rolls her eyes and rests her head on the back of the couch as Tyler says, "Always."

Before Jeremy can say something similarly ridiculous, Bonnie speaks. "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"I'm listening."

Bonnie picks up the phone and puts it to her ear as she goes out onto the back porch. She leaves her jacket inside and the temperature is dropping so she does a little spell to warm it up a little. "Something happened," she says. "I did something."

"_Something _ happened," Lucy repeats, "and you did _something_. No need to be so specific."

Bonnie smiles in spite of herself. Then she remembers what she wanted to talk about and her smile fades. "I killed someone. I didn't mean to and I didn't _pick. _She didn't deserve it."

On the other end, Bonnie can hear Lucy let out a breath. "What happened?"

Bonnie explains about Stefan biting her. The whole time she runs her fingers along her neck.

"Bonnie," Lucy says, "you're alive. That's not a bad thing. Don't let anyone tell you it's a bad thing."

"Someone else being dead is a bad thing."

April would certainly think it was a bad thing.

"Bonnie," Lucy says, more forcefully, "I told you once that you're one of the good ones. That's still true. You made a mistake, and I'll admit it was a big one, but you're not the first. You won't be the last either. Personally, I'm glad you're okay."

"Have you ever...?"

Lucy sighs heavily. "Unfortunately. It's gonna be fine, Bonnie. You're a good one, maybe one of the best ones. Don't forget that. I'll call you when I know more about Ramona."

* * *

Elena's not at home when Jeremy calls. She says she's having some alone time. Bonnie says it probably means Elena is doing her mourning thing on her own. He doesn't know what that entails but he doesn't get to talk to Elena until the next day. It's after school and Jeremy's got an assignment due at midnight that he hasn't even started but he's trying to convince Elena not to involve Klaus anyway.

"You don't think I should go to Klaus," she says knowingly. She's sucking from a blood bag.

"It's too big of a risk," Jeremy says, going through the cabinets for something to eat. He finds a giant bag of chips in their usual spot. "We should be trying to get _away_ from Klaus, not invite him in further." He sits down at the kitchen table across from her. Him with his chips and her with her blood. This is what their lives have become.

"We can't do this alone," Elena sighs. The bag is finished and she crumples it into her palm to toss with perfect accuracy into the trash can. Now she's making that face she always used to make when they were younger, when Jeremy's done something annoying. She used to make that face a lot back when he was still doing drugs with Vicki. She makes it when she thinks she's saying something he just doesn't hear.

"Elena," Jeremy says, setting aside the chips. Now she's the one with the hearing problem. Ironic since her hearing is vastly improved. "I know you're desperate to know what happened to Damon and Stefan but they wouldn't want you to do this. Klaus is dangerous, especially to you. If he didn't need you to make more hybrids he would have killed you already. If you're scared, you don't need to be. We can protect each other."

With Damon and Stefan gone, they're safer. They will never be their victims again. Elena doesn't realize how safe they really are, not yet. Once some more time has passed, she'll be able to, once the grief isn't as fresh.

"Elena, I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

Elena laughs a little. "Remember when you staked me?"

Jeremy wouldn't smile if she wasn't smiling, too. He remembers that and he remembers really wanting to kill her. If Bonnie hadn't been there, he might have. "Yeah, well. I was having a bad day. I'm not gonna stake you anytime soon, if that's what you're worried about."

Elena looks down at the table and drags her finger along the table's surface. "If Mom and Dad were alive, what do you think they'd say?"

"I don't know," Jeremy says. "They'd probably be proud of us for being alive this long, after everything we've been through."

"I'm not alive," Elena says.

Their parents hated vampires, which Elena now is, though it's not her fault. She didn't ask for it anymore than Jeremy asked to be a hunter. Even though his parents weren't hunters, they must have known how to use a stake. Jeremy's following in their footsteps more than she is. Maybe that reality has hit her.

"You're alive, Elena."

"More alive than Stefan and Damon." Elena's eyes meet his. They used to be different, back before their parents died. There was that typical tension between siblings, annoyance wrapped up in love. She's his sister, now more than ever. He doesn't need the old Elena back. He just needs Elena back, his sister, who wouldn't have chosen anyone else over him, wouldn't have let anyone hurt him.

"I know you feel alone because they're not here, but you're not," Jeremy says. "We're all together. You and me, Bonnie, Tyler, Caroline, Matt. No one can hurt us if we're together. I mean Bonnie alone is a pretty big deal, right? And there's me. I know you think I'm still a kid, but I'm a hunter. That means something. Tyler's a hybrid, and you and Caroline are vampires. Okay, so Matt's human but we can take care of him. We don't need anyone else, especially not Klaus."

Elena grasps his hands across the table. He can tell she's being careful not to squeeze too hard. Only he can see her fingers splayed across the top of his Hunter's Mark, a vampire touching his Mark and not even knowing it. She smiles. "You're right. We'll find another way."

* * *

Lucy calls in the middle of the night. It's past two when Bonnie's phone rings. With a groan she rolls over and squints against the white-blue shine of the screen. She answers. "Did New Orleans move into a different time zone?"

"No, but if we put our magic together, I'm sure we could manage that," Lucy says. "Sorry it's so late but you're gonna want to hear this."

Bonnie sits up in bed. "What is it?"

"Remember when I said you spooked Ramona?" Lucy says.

"Yes."

"I take it back," Lucy says. "Not that you three aren't scary. It's just that I found someone here. Apparently Ramona had her own little vampire love affair going on. Well, if you call being stalked by an idiot a love affair."

"I don't," Bonnie says, rubbing her eyes.

"Didn't think you did," Lucy says. "He's a weirdo but he was very thorough. And our girl _Mona_ saw some use for him occasionally. Anyway he said she was doing work exclusively for Stefan before he died. Memory restoration, locating a dead vampire, supplying him with herbs to block a witch's - I'm assuming your - magic. He kept her busy."

"Hope he paid her well," Bonnie says.

"He did," Lucy assures her. "_Too well._"

"Too well?"

"Way too well."

Maybe it's because she's exhausted but Bonnie can't grasp the significance of Stefan not knowing how to make change. "So?"

"He left her with some extra work," Lucy says, "to be completed if and when he died."

"What kind of work?"

"Delivering a message," Lucy says. "And who knows what else."

Even from the grave, Stefan manages to make things difficult. Bonnie really wishes they'd managed to kill him first. Damon wouldn't have been half the headache. Well, he probably would have been a little headache, but at least it would have faded after they'd killed him.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where even after the dead are dead, they'll still give you problems.

"Did she deliver it?"

"I don't know," Lucy says. "The vampire says he was off his game for awhile. He didn't see her sending anything or talking to anyone, but he was also lying in a gutter for a few nights. We can probably guess what that message said. And I don't have to tell you who it might have been for."

"No," Bonnie answers. She turns to the photo Elena gave her. It's nestled between candles, college acceptance letters, and jewelry. Best friends forever. Future college roommates who will take Whitmore by storm. "You don't."


	4. Friends and Enemies

Friends and Enemies

Tyler's awoken before Bonnie starts banging on his door, by her rapid footsteps on the floor outside. He speeds to pull on a pair of pants before opening the door. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"We have a problem," Bonnie says. She hasn't looked this grave since they discovered April's body. Then there was a sadness behind her eyes. Now there's something else. He doesn't know what it is, but something's happened. "Come on." In her flannel pajama bottoms and tank top, she leads him downstairs where Jeremy is sitting up on the couch, in the midst of yawning.

"What's going on?" Jeremy asks groggily.

Tyler realizes Bonnie's gripping her cell phone. She puts it down on the table. It's on speaker. "Lucy thinks Stefan paid the witch to deliver a message to Elena."

"What kind of message?" Jeremy asks.

As if it's not obvious.

"She knows," Tyler says. Elena knows. "Fuck."

"That's not all," Bonnie says. "Lucy?"

"Okay," Lucy says, "Ramona Kincaid definitely isn't in New Orleans anymore, but I think she's in Mystic Falls, or somewhere close. She's hiding, wherever she is, but that doesn't mean she's not working."

"Doing what?" Jeremy asks. "Is she delivering this message in person?"

"No," Lucy says. "She's following through on something else. My guess? Stefan paid her to help Elena."

Jeremy curses. "Help Elena do _what?" he asks._

Tyler folds his arms across his chest. "Get revenge."

It's not a radical idea. They did it. Elena can, too.

"If Ramona's helping her," Bonnie says, "that changes things. She's probably been practicing longer. I know I'm good but she's got way more experience. I-"

Lucy cuts her off. "You can handle her, Bonnie. Whatever Salvatore paid her, it couldn't have been enough to convince her to go up against a Bennett witch, not in any substantial way. Whatever she's doing for Elena, you can bet it'll keep her away from you. She's not gonna put herself at risk for a vampire she doesn't even know. Don't worry."

Bonnie looks slightly reassured. "Thanks, Lucy," she says. "We've gotta figure this out but I'll call you later."

"If you need my help, don't hesitate to ask," Lucy says. "Good luck, kids."

They might need it.

When Bonnie hangs up, she stares down at her phone for awhile. She only looks up when Jeremy speaks.

"I don't think Elena knows," Jeremy says. "If she's known this _whole_ time, why hasn't she said something? She was at your birthday party! For the past couple of days we've been trying to convince her not to involve Klaus in looking for _us._ Why would she be doing any of this stuff if she already knew we killed Damon and Stefan?"

"I don't know," Tyler says, "but it makes sense."

"It doesn't actually," Jeremy says.

"It does," Tyler insists, remembering the flashing lights of the bar, the girl who strongly resembled Elena. "I saw her at the bar the other night."

Bonnie and Jeremy turn toward him at the same time, with wide, incredulous eyes.

"You _saw_ her?" Jeremy exclaims. "And you just kept that to yourself?"

"I thought I imagined it," Tyler said. "And I was a little distracted!"

For a minute they're all quiet, remembering exactly what was so distracting that night. Elena got quite the eyeful, probably more than she expected. _Way_ more.

"There was another girl there. She looked like Elena," Tyler explains. "It was dark and we were all drinking. I thought I made a mistake." If he'd looked a little harder, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in kissing Bonnie, maybe he would have realized sooner that they were being watched.

Jeremy throws up his hands. "We need to know if she got that message. Maybe she didn't."

"Let's assume she did get it," Tyler says. "What are we gonna do? And what's she waiting for?" If Elena wanted to confront them she's had plenty of opportunities.

"Why hasn't she told Caroline or Matt?" Jeremy questions. "How do we know she hasn't already?"

Caroline would never be able to hide knowing that, not for this long at least, and Matt would give it away with an erratic heartbeat. They don't know, not yet. Tyler explains to Jeremy and is interrupted by Bonnie.

"Elena's feeling us out," she says. "She wants to know what we're gonna do next."

"How do you figure?" Jeremy asks.

"It's what I'd do," Bonnie says. "Maybe she thought bringing Klaus into it would scare us."

"She wanted to see how we'd react," Tyler sighs.

And they reacted badly. All three of them.

"So she was never going to ask Klaus for help at all?" Jeremy says.

"We don't know that," Tyler says. "If she tells Klaus the truth..."

"He may do anything," Bonnie sighs.

He could come after them, too, or maybe he won't care at all. It's not his problem if their group is imploding, if the three of them got so fed up they decided to do something drastic. Maybe Klaus will sit back and let it all play out. But Elena said so herself: She knows what Klaus wants. She can leverage that. Leverage it right to Klaus helping her get her own kind of vengeance?

"Our only advantage right now," Bonnie says, "is that she doesn't know that we know she knows."

Tyler _almost_ follows what she's saying.

"We keep doing what we're doing," she goes on. "We pretend like everything's normal. We keep our guard up and figure out what _she's_ doing."

"What do we think she's doing?" Jeremy asks.

Tyler can't imagine Elena just sitting down and letting them get away with it, but what _will_ she do? Jeremy's her brother, Bonnie's her best friend. Tyler may not be much but she's known him for her entire life. How far will she go to avenge Damon and Stefan?

None of them says anything.

"We should get some sleep," Bonnie says finally though none of them are going to be sleeping.

"Yeah," Jeremy agrees, reclining back on the couch. "Night."

Tyler echoes the sentiment and follows Bonnie upstairs. He lingers in the doorway of her bedroom instead of continuing down to her dad's. She must have known he was following her because she doesn't move to close her bedroom door. Instead she stands near her nightstand.

"Why did she give this to me?" she asks, showing him a framed photo. Her and Elena as kids, tiny and adorable. "If she's known, then _why_ did she give me this?"

"I don't know," Tyler says. "Maybe she doesn't know after all."

"And when you thought you saw her at the bar?" Bonnie asks.

"I could have just imagined it," he says. He's not even sure what he saw anymore. Just dark hair and big, dark eyes in a dark, crowded room. It was just dark in general.

Bonnie sits the picture back down and starts straightening up her nightstand, tossing bits of paper into the trashcan. On one of them he recognizes Whitmore's seal. It's an envelope that undoubtedly held an acceptance letter. He hasn't thought about his own acceptance letters. He's probably got a few waiting for him back home but he hasn't checked the mail in awhile. College seems so far away. How can he go with Klaus on his back, in the back of his mind? Even with the sire bond gone, Klaus still has a hold on him.

"Something else you wanted to talk about?" Bonnie asks. He's been standing there awhile now and he hasn't said another word.

"Oh," Tyler says, "no. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. Elena wasn't supposed to find out."

That was part of it, from the very beginning. It wasn't spoken, but it didn't need to be. No one knows but them. Not Elena, not Caroline, not Matt, not even Jeremy until that night at Tyler's party. Just them. And definitely not Elena.

He hears Bonnie laugh a little under her breath. "We both know you don't care that Elena knows." She doesn't sound angry when she says it, or even upset. She's just talking. And she's right. He doesn't care. He'd tell Elena himself if it meant he would be the only one to pay the price for it, whatever price that will be.

"I care that you care," he says. "And that Jeremy cares. You're her friend. He's her brother. She wasn't supposed to find out."

Bonnie shrugs, a little too relaxed for her ease to be believable. "It's not like this wasn't a possibility. Did we honestly think we were gonna keep this a secret forever?"

Tyler imagines a future ten or twenty years from now. Caroline's a sunny, friendly face on the morning news in Richmond, Elena's doing...something, and Matt is still in Mystic Falls, owner of the Grill with a family of his own. Bonnie and Jeremy have cranked out a few kids and it surprises him how easily he pictures it, Bonnie and Jeremy with little Bonnies and Jeremys who practice magic with their mom and learn how to wield stakes from their dad. It's ten or twenty years later and no one knows the three of them banded together to kill Damon and Stefan. The three who killed them are never mentioned again. Sometimes Elena may think of them, Caroline will wonder what they wanted, but they'll never find out who they were. They will live their entire, immortal lives never knowing, and never suspecting that the killers were there the entire time. Elena will spend the holidays with nieces and nephews, Bonnie's and Jeremy's kids, and never assume that it was while conspiring to kill the Salvatores that Bonnie and Jeremy reunited.

Tyler is...He realizes he doesn't know where he is.

"I think we did," he says.

She looks down at her hands for awhile. "I did," she admits. "I _really_ did. There was moment when Stefan said he called Elena. It was a lie but I wondered what she might do if he had. I thought she'd definitely help me. She wouldn't let him hurt me. I thought about what I might say to her. I can't apologize. I'm not sorry."

"You could apologize anyway," Tyler says. "You don't have to mean it. Stefan and Damon never meant it."

Bonnie smiles slightly but it wavers.

"You can tell her the truth," he says. "We had our reasons. _Good_ reasons."_  
_

The best reasons. Tyler couldn't make up better reasons to kill Damon and Stefan.

"She has reasons, too, now," Bonnie reminds him. They killed the two loves of Elena's life. Sure, she's got reasons. "I don't know what I'll do if..." Bonnie's voice trails off. She doesn't try to pick up where that thought left off.

"If she comes after us?"

She nods. "Am I going to have to _fight_ my best friend? She's Jeremy's _sister. _And what does that lead to? Going up against Caroline? Matt?"

Tyler can't see it going that way. He can't picture Caroline coming after them. He can't see Matt doing that either. They'll be furious, maybe they'll never speak to any of them again, or maybe they'll force them out of town. But try to kill them? No. Elena is harder to make out. Bonnie and Jeremy are the Elena authorities. They know her better than Tyler does. If Bonnie's unsure, then Tyler's unsure. If Jeremy's nervous, Tyler's nervous. To calm them both, he reaches for her hand and squeezes her fingers.

"She wasn't supposed to find out," Bonnie says. "If we have to-"

"It won't come to that," he says.

Bonnie presses her lips together into a line. She doesn't have to speak, out loud or in his head, for him to know what she's thinking. _You don't know that. _

"If it does," he amends, "we'll be okay." He doesn't know _how_ they'll be okay. They only ever wanted Stefan and Damon. And now Klaus. Caroline, Elena, and Matt were never on the list. Even if they do want revenge, Tyler can't imagine putting Caroline on the list. She's not his girlfriend anymore but she's still Caroline.

Caroline, who held him through his first full moon.

"We don't have to figure it out right now," he says quickly, pushing images of a vamped out Caroline out of his mind, a Caroline who will attack and kill to avenge Stefan Salvatore. "We don't even know what we're dealing with yet."

"You're right," Bonnie says. "We'll worry about it when we actually have to worry about it."

* * *

It's easier said than done.

In the morning, Bonnie reminds them to behave naturally around Elena, as naturally as they possibly can. That won't be a problem for Tyler since he rarely sees Elena anyway but Bonnie and Jeremy are different stories. Their natural involves seeing a lot of Elena. Jeremy's quiet for most of the morning, even after they get to school, even after first period, even after lunch. By the time Tyler sees him during his free period, sitting in the library with a history book open in front of him, Jeremy's still in the same pensive state.

"You're gonna drive yourself crazy," Tyler says, slumping down into the chair across from him.

"She wasn't supposed to find out."

"_No one_ was supposed to find out."

Jeremy scribbles in the corners of his book. "How hypocritical is it for me to just want Elena to get over it? On a scale of one to ten."

"Zero," Tyler says. "You've been getting over things Stefan and Damon did for over a year now."

Jeremy looks like he's trying to convince himself but he nods his agreement. "Right. I mean...Right."

"Right."

Jeremy sighs heavily and slams his history book shut. "Let's talk about something else. Like that other thing we're supposed to be doing. Killing Klaus."

"Yeah, I almost forgot about that one," Tyler says sarcastically.

"I've got a Mark to grow," Jeremy continues, "and it's not growing with us just sitting here."

Tyler knows a subject change when he sees one. This is a big one. Of course Jeremy doesn't want to talk about Elena now that she may or may not be their new worst enemy, and may or may not have a witch on hand who will help her get some brand of vengeance. "I know," Tyler says.

"When are we gonna get on that? We don't know how long it'll take. And you want to do this by graduation, don't you?"

Tyler thinks of his mom in California. He promised her but he knew it was a stretch. Still, Jeremy's got a point. Who knows how big that mark's gonna have to get before it reaches completion? What if has to cover Jeremy's entire upper half? His whole body? That could mean hundreds, _thousands_ of vampires. They could wait, and maybe they should, with Elena doing whatever it is she's doing, but they _do_ have to get started. And Jeremy needs a distraction.

Tyler wouldn't mind one himself.

* * *

They go hunting that night. They all need the respite but all three of them are paying extra attention and making sure they're not being followed. There are no Elenas - lookalikes, doppelgangers or the real thing - in sight. When they get to Nex, looking just as rundown and sketchy as Jeremy remembers, Bonnie does a glamour to hide their appearances. By the time she's finished Tyler is slightly overweight and has a mess of facial hair, Jeremy's shrunk three inches and has gone blond, and Bonnie's leggy and slim with giant boobs and a tiny waist, the better to attract skeevy vampires.

"This brings back memories," Jeremy says as they approach the entrance.

The plan is simple. Bonnie will make the rounds, finding the ones who are Damons and Stefans on the Good Vampire/Bad Vampire scale. The Elenas, Carolines and Tylers will be left alone but the others will take a walk to the back of the bar at Bonnie's "suggestion".

Tyler stands in the alley with Jeremy, guarding the door, and watching Jeremy dispatch one vampire after another. He keeps a close eye just in case Jeremy gets in over his head. So far he hasn't had to step in.

"Deja vu," Jeremy comments as the most recent vampire collapses in a graying, staked heap. He steps forward to pull the stake from his chest. "This is exactly what me and Stefan were doing."

"Riveting," Tyler sighs. "How much longer do you want to go?" He still has to carry the bodies a little ways away, just to space them out a bit. Once they're gone, someone will probably realize vampires have been dropping dead but Bonnie's altered their appearances enough no one will know who to look for.

"One more?"

Tyler punches out a text to Bonnie. "She's sending out the last. How's your Mark?"

Jeremy looks down at his bare arm, where the Mark is now reaching up around his elbow. Sweeping artistry that he doesn't understand. "It's coming. Slowly."

"How slowly?"

"Too slowly," Jeremy answers. At this rate they'll be lucky to finish the Mark by Jeremy's graduation.

Tyler opens his mouth to respond but the steel door swings open and a man steps through. He has the same determined expression of all the others. They want to be outside, where the hunter and hybrid are waiting, but they don't know why its so urgent. Clarity begins to return to him when he sees them and the stake in Jeremy's hand, still dripping with the blood of the last vampire.

A couple of the others tried to run, only to have their paths blocked by Tyler. The others decided to fight, with teeth bared, eyes red, and veins protruding from their faces. This one is one of those. He's not very big, even smaller than Jeremy is but he's strong. The others were old, maybe not much older than Damon or Stefan, but this one has a few more decades one him, enough to fling Jeremy through the air with enough force Jeremy's certain his back would have broken if he wasn't a hunter. He keeps his grip on the stake though.

The stake is all that matters.

The vampire still doesn't try to leave, even with the door clear, and Jeremy on the ground. He might be hungry. And Jeremy's a human who's pissing him off.

Jeremy stands back up, glimpsing Tyler's concerned face. "I got it," he assures him. Tyler stands back, looking reluctant but resigned. Still, he's coiled to spring.

The vampire lunges for him, catching Jeremy's torso in an iron grip. They struggle and Jeremy forces the stake into the vampire's side. His attack earns him a feral cry, and a set of fangs that snap together very close to his face. A punch to the face sends the vampire staggering slightly but Jeremy cuts his knuckles open on the point of his teeth. It might be the slight taste of blood that makes the vampire rabid. He's forgotten all about the stake that's still in him.

The vampire speeds toward Jeremy and hits him so hard that Jeremy's thrown over his shoulder to crash to the concrete. When the vampire hovers over him, fangs bared, Jeremy wonders for a minute if he's a Ripper. The thought flies away as the vampire grips Jeremy's shirt and yanks him up. He tears Jeremy's shirt and he would have fallen back the ground if not for the vampire catching hold of his arm.

He doesn't have time to consider a bite. Tyler shoves him hard enough that he slams into the wall. At least one of the bricks cracks.

"I said I got it!" Jeremy exclaims.

Tyler rolls his eyes as he tears the stake from the vampire's side and tosses it to Jeremy. "Fine."

When the vampire comes at him this time, Jeremy's ready. He's faster, as vampires are bound to be, but Jeremy's able to wind an arm around his neck. He twists it and hears the satisfying crack as it breaks. The vampire goes limp in his arms and Jeremy meets Tyler's gaze across the alley.

"Told you," Jeremy says.

Tyler grins. "Told me."

Bonnie's coming through the side door when Jeremy plunges the stake into the vampire's heart. "Are you okay?" she asks, taking in the sight of his bloody knuckles and the now bleeding scrapes and cuts along his arms and shoulders.

"Never better," Jeremy says. "Let's get outta here."

They're quiet on the drive back to Mystic Falls

"Drop me off at my house," Jeremy says as they cross into town.

"Why?" Tyler questions.

"I wanna talk to Elena."

"About what?" Bonnie asks, swiveling around in her seat.

"I'm going to feel her out," he says. "I'm going to tell her what we've been doing tonight."

To say that Elena looks surprised to see Jeremy is an understatement. He rarely stops by anymore, not unless she asks him to. "What are you doing here?" Elena questions. She steps aside to let him into the house.

"I don't know," Jeremy says with a shrug. "We were out. Me, Bonnie, and Tyler. I thought I'd come see you." He reminds himself to be natural, as natural as he can be. She's his sister. If she knows he helped kill Stefan and Damon, maybe she's trying just as hard to be natural as he is. Maybe she's afraid of him, worried she can't trust him. He just has to remind her that she can.

"Okay," Elena says with an awkward laugh. "I'm fine. You guys don't have to supervise." She busies herself with cleaning. She's been doing a lot of that.

"I know," he says.

"What were you three doing tonight?" Elena asks.

"Killing vampires," Jeremy says. "To grow my Mark."

"You've been killing vampires?" It's hard to tell now, after Tyler offered up some of his blood before they left.

"Maybe half a dozen, more or less," Jeremy answers.

Elena's wiping down the counter but she meets his eyes with hers. She smiles but doesn't show her teeth and the warmth doesn't seem to reach her eyes. "You're good at it."

The moment's gone and passed before Jeremy can analyze it any further. Then she's typical Elena again. She's his sister. She opens up the refrigerator. "Are you hungry? I can make you something."

* * *

Bonnie checks the face of her watch as she mounts the steps to Elena's front door. She's a few minutes late. She was halfway to Whitmore, ready to meet Shane and get back on track. She was going to pick his brain about the cure and college acceptances and decisions for the future. Then she got a call to come to Elena's as soon as possible. The door swings open before Bonnie can even touch it, and Elena stands at the threshold.

"You're here," she says, with a bright smile. She reaches out to hug her. "Good. We've been waiting for you." She's been acting so normally Bonnie wonders if there's a chance Ramona hasn't gotten to deliver her message yet. If she hasn't then maybe Bonnie can work out a way to make sure she never gets it. There's gotta be a spell for that.

Everyone else is already gathered in Elena's living room. Jeremy's sitting on the couch with Matt, Caroline's perched on the arm of a chair, and Tyler stands as far removed from them as he can, leaning against the wall. Bonnie joins Jeremy on the couch and rests her hands in her lap.

"So can we get started?" Tyler asks impatiently.

"We just need a few more minutes," Elena says.

"For what?" he asks.

"We're waiting."

"Still?" Jeremy says. "I thought we were waiting for Bonnie."

"We were," Elena says. "And someone else. Just a few more minutes."

Bonnie's not the only one confused. Even Caroline and Matt have been kept in the dark. Tyler looks like he's about to demand an explanation. _Don't, _Bonnie tells him. If Bonnie's wrong, if Elena does know, they need to make themselves smaller. It's better if they don't seem antagonistic. She won't need any extra reasons to come after them, and unlike with Bonnie and Jeremy, there aren't many reasons Elena can fall back on for _not _making Tyler pay for Damon's and Stefan's deaths. _  
_

The only person they could be waiting for is Klaus. Elena may have told Jeremy she wasn't going to involve him, but if she does know what they did, all bets are off. There's no way he'll know they're coming for him next, but his guard will be up around them now, in a way it wasn't before. To Klaus, they've always been easily crushable insects that he's simply allowed to live this long. He already killed Tyler once, and went after Carol Lockwood when Tyler's death didn't stick.

But what does Elena want from Klaus? His help in getting revenge? In exchange for what? A lifetime of her blood? The continuation of her line so he'll have another doppelganger to bleed after she's dead?

It isn't the best bargaining chip, not for Elena anyway, but it'll work.

Tyler's head snaps to the back door. Bonnie can see on his face that he hears someone. Caroline is similarly interested, craning her head so she can see.

Elena can hear them, too. It's only a second or so later that someone raps lightly on the back door. She goes to answer it, walking at a normal pace instead of speeding over there.

Bonnie meets Tyler's gaze from across the room. He's tense, coiled as tightly as she's ever seen him. When Klaus comes through that door, Bonnie doesn't know how he'll react. Maybe he'll be resigned. They saw this coming or maybe he'll be angry, and make sure everyone knows it. Either way they're going to be up all night trying to work a way out of this.

Elena comes back into view first, with a tiny smile on her face. Satisfied and content. She's the only one.

The man who follows her - taking measured steps in an impeccably tailored suit - isn't Klaus at all.

_Shit. Shit. Shit. _

It's Elijah.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where Elena definitely knows.

* * *

**Dante 101 asked if any of the Originals besides Klaus would be making appearances. I guess this answers your question but Elijah isn't the only one who will play a part here. Thank you for reading and for your awesome reviews! **


	5. Intimidation

Intimidation

_She knows. She knows. She knows. She knows._

Bonnie's probably driving Tyler and Jeremy crazy. Her thoughts are frantic and coming fast, echoing through all three of their minds, but neither of the boys shows the slightest bit of discomfort. Meanwhile, Bonnie's telling herself to relax because her discomfort might as well be a neon sign.

"Hello, all," Elijah says, as easily as if they've known each other for their entire lives. He folds his hands neatly in front of himself.

No one says anything. Bonnie doesn't feel as bad when she catches Matt's eye and he lifts his palms upward in an "I don't know" kind of movement. Caroline is simply staring.

"Elijah's here to help us," Elena explains, filling the silence.

"Help us do what?" Tyler asks, glaring at the Original.

"Defend ourselves," Elena says.

Bonnie's almost relieved Elena knows they killed Damon and Stefan. At least that explains why everything they said to her for the past couple of days went in one ear and out the other. Otherwise there would be no excuse.

"And what does he get?" Bonnie asks. Elena loves to make deals with Elijah, no matter how many times he proves he can't be trusted, no matter how many times he chooses to protect his crumbling family at their expense. If he's here, he's come because she's promised him something in return, but whether either of them will get what they bargained for is a toss up.

"We help him get to the cure," Elena answers.

Bonnie doesn't know what she expected, but it wasn't that.

She's not the only one who's surprised. "What do you want the cure for?" Jeremy asks.

"What I plan to do is none of your concern," Elijah says. "Just know that I'm here to provide my services if they are required. In return, you'll be assisting me."

More like Bonnie and Jeremy will be doing the assisting. If Elijah seriously wants the cure, at least it means he and Elena have no plans on putting Bonnie and Jeremy down permanently. But they don't need Tyler to find it. Bonnie can't be sure with Elijah but if it was Klaus, she's certain he'd kill Tyler if only to send a loud, bloody message: They back down or more heads will roll. And Elijah doesn't even know Klaus is next on their list. If he did, she's sure Tyler would be dead.

Maybe she should make him another bracelet.

"We don't need you," Tyler says.

Elijah smirks and turns his gaze to Elena.

"You said you didn't want to go to Klaus," shesays, folding her arms tightly around her chest. She's closing off. The decision has been made. There's no going back. Not even the fiercest of storms could move her now.

"And that translates to we'd rather have his fake nobility brother instead?" Jeremy snaps. "Are you _kidding_ me?"

"This could be good," Caroline says, standing up and holding out her hands. She'd wide eyed and hopeful, all optimism and peacekeeping. Matt looks relieved to hear her speaking. "It's better than Klaus."

Elena spares Caroline a grateful glance, but Bonnie rolls her eyes.

"No, Caroline, he's not _better_," she says. "He's the one who got my mom turned into a vampire. That's not _good__. _Have you all just forgotten everything he's done? Rebekah would have _killed_ Elena on Elijah's orders! My mom _was killed_ on Elijah's orders! We can't trust him anymore than we can Klaus!"

Every time Elena's seen fit to put her trust in Elijah Mikaelson, they've ended up on the losing end. It will be the same this time, except the only losers will be Bonnie, Tyler, and Jeremy. Elena may finally walk out of a deal with Elijah Mikaelson unscathed.

The window behind Caroline and Matt shatters.

"Sorry," Bonnie says quickly as Caroline and Matt duck their heads and look back at the broken window in shock. "I'm sorry."

"Jesus, Bon," Matt says, brushing bits of glass from his shirt.

Caroline looks like she's about to say something. Bonnie already knows she doesn't want to hear it when Tyler speaks instead. She knows he's trying to keep the attention off her, at least for a minute. "And what if he undaggers Rebekah while he's here? Then what? We've got another pissed off Original gunning for us."

"He won't," Elena says. "It's part of the deal. Rebekah stays daggered for now. Right, Elijah?" She looks to him, urging him to make his agreement known. As if that will calm any of them down.

Elijah merely nods his assent, and Elena looks back to them, satisfied. "I'm not an idiot," she says. "I covered all my bases."

Bonnie doesn't doubt it. Elijah has to know the truth. There's no way Elena would bring him back here without some intention of putting him to work. His presence alone is intimidating. An Original, the first one they had the misfortune of meeting, the one who can be credited with almost as much damage as Klaus. He's tall and imposing in his designer suit, but anyone could write him off as an overdressed, out-of-towner. Only they know the heights of his savage power, simmering behind the elegant facade. He didn't have a problem bargaining Elena's life for the life of Bonnie or her mom, and it was an even less difficult decision to betray them at the last minute and let Klaus live after the sacrifice. Elijah protects Elijah and Elijah's own. The only reason Elena is even slightly safer is because she's Elena. That means something to people.

"I trust him," Elena says.

Tyler scoffs. "Well as long as _you_ trust him. The rest of us will just fall in line and hope you're not wrong."

So much for appearing less antagonistic.

"She's not wrong," Elijah says, his voice sharp and clear. "I am as trustworthy as any of you."

Bonnie knows she's not mistaken when his gaze seems to linger on her for longer than is necessary.

As trustworthy as them, the killers of Damon and Stefan Salvatore.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where that's not trustworthy at all.

* * *

"How did she find him?" Tyler asks as soon as they get home. He doesn't have much experience with Elijah. Most of his Original interaction came in the form of Klaus or Rebekah, but Elijah is mostly a mystery. Judging from Bonnie's reaction - the shattered window and rare showing of anger, he's just as bad as his brother.

"She didn't," Bonnie says, throwing down her bag. "Ramona did."

"Do you think she's done then?"

Compared to lots of things Elena could have requested, finding Elijah was probably an easy one. Now Ramona can slip away into the abyss, set up shop somewhere new, and hope Bonnie or another Bennett witch doesn't come looking for her. But if this means Ramona is out of their hair, then Tyler will take it.

"Maybe," Bonnie says. "Maybe not. Elena could have her doing anything now."

Tyler's got his fingers crossed for a definitely. An Original is trouble enough without an experienced witch working in the background, pulling partners for Elena out of the woodwork. He's gotta hand it to Elena. If there was someone who could give them pause, it would be an Original. But it's only a pause. They'll press play again soon. They're going to take out Klaus. Elijah is only his brother and is slightly less difficult to wrangle.

"He got my mom turned into a vampire," Bonnie says. "He was willing to have me or my mom _die _and she calls him here!"

"We killed Stefan and Damon," Jeremy says, joining her on the couch.

Bonnie waves it off with her hand and Tyler smiles at how cute she looks when she's annoyed. "Even if we hadn't," she says, "and even if she didn't know, I'm not sure this exact scenario wouldn't still be playing out."

Tyler's pretty sure it would, but he doesn't say so.

"You need to go on vervain," Bonnie says. It takes Tyler a moment to realize she's talking to him. Neither her nor Jeremy can be compelled anyway.

"I do?"

"Yes," she says. "We should have done it sooner. We can't have two Originals walking around who can compel you whenever they want. I'll talk to Sheriff Forbes and see if she's got any. I'll do it right now."

Before Jeremy or Tyler can say or do anything, Bonnie's pulling her phone from her bag and calling Caroline's house.

"I don't know which is worse, Klaus or Elijah," Jeremy says as Bonnie explains the situation to Sheriff Forbes. "They're both pains in the ass."

"Family trait, I guess," Tyler says. He looks to Bonnie as she paces the length of the room, chattering to Sheriff Forbes about vervain and Original vampires and protecting Tyler. She adds that they should get some for Matt, too. Elena and Caroline as well. Their addition seems like an afterthought but Tyler guesses it couldn't hurt, though he's not feeling very protective of Elena at the moment. But if Elijah and Klaus are both going to be in town, they need to make sure they've covered everything.

Jeremy's looking at Bonnie, too. "She's freaking out," he says.

"I can tell."

"She's pretty hot when she's breaking things," Jeremy says.

Tyler smiles at the thought of the shattered window and the spray of minuscule shards that littered Elena's floor. "Yeah. She is."

Is it weird that they can discuss how hot they think Bonnie is?

She hangs up with Sheriff Forbes and turns to them. "She's gonna get some. You'll have to ingest some at least daily. It'll suck but it'll be worth it."

"That's fine with me," Tyler says. Compared to the werewolf transformation, vervain is a pinch.

"I'm gonna call Shane," Bonnie says, "and tell him he's got another Original to look out for." She's calmer now that they're out of Elena's house, away from her and Elijah. She won't be breaking any windows in here.

"We could just kill him," Jeremy says as Bonnie steps away to dial Shane. "It'll grow my Mark faster."

"We don't have the white oak stake," Tyler says. "Klaus does." And there's no way we're getting their hands on it. Besides-

"Bonnie can do it," Jeremy says, interrupting Tyler's thought. "She's stronger now. Witches can kill an Original without the stake."

"We're not going to kill off Elijah's whole line just because he's a problem," Tyler says. They can work around Elijah. He doesn't know _how_ yet, but it's possible. Maybe they could use Klaus for that. "And that wouldn't grow the Mark anyway. We could dagger him."

"If we had a dagger."

"If we had a dagger," Tyler repeats. They don't have a dagger. Klaus has those, too, save the one in Rebekah's heart, but Tyler isn't interested in exchanging one antagonistic Original for another. And that would mean actually getting to Rebekah's body and removing the dagger. Maybe they could find the other ones, but Klaus is likely to have hidden those well. Waking up Rebekah might be their only option. At least she wouldn't be allying herself with Elena anytime soon. Or maybe she would. Elena's shown an uncanny ability to draw unlikely allies to her cause.

Maybe they shouldn't undagger Rebekah.

Tyler sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. He's going to give himself a migraine. "I'm taking a shower."

* * *

It's Bonnie's week to do the shopping. It seems like a little thing compared to their growing to-do list, full of other, more important things. It's kind of nice to worry about finding the right orange juice, the no pulp kind (after Jeremy accidentally bought the pulpy kind last week) instead of worrying about Elena and Elijah.

But of course, she can't be content for long.

"Bonnie."

She doesn't turn at the sound of his voice. Instead she continues on down the snack aisle, and throws Jeremy's preferred chips into her cart. If she ignores him, maybe he'll go away. "Bonnie," Elijah repeats. He falls into step beside her, his hands clasped behind his back. Next to her in jeans and a tattered sweater and standing among the undignified packaged foods, Elijah looks completely out of place.

"Bonnie," he says again.

"_What_?"

"So you _can_ hear me," Elijah comments. "I was beginning to worry you'd lost your hearing since our meeting yesterday."

"Unfortunately I can hear you just fine," she says.

Elijah laughs a little. It's a low rumble in his chest. "I wished to speak with you about our arrangement."

"We don't have an arrangement," Bonnie informs him. She wonders if it would be conspicuous for him to collapse to the floor, screaming in agony as she breaks all his bones. He'll heal but it'll take a little while. Someone might think it's strange. "You and _Elena_ have an arrangement."

"Have you and Elena had a falling out?" Elijah questions. He draws out the "falling out" for her benefit Bonnie's sure. Though Elena and Bonnie haven't made their "falling out" official, it certainly seems to be happening. "I was under the impression that any arrangement Elena made, was one that you were more than happy to follow through on."

"The last arrangement Elena made with you ended with my mother being turned into a vampire," Bonnie reminds him. Elena, so unwilling to see Elijah perish with his siblings that she just _had_ to warn him about Esther's plan even though it would have saved them an incredible amount of trouble. "Excuse me for not being very enthusiastic about this one."

"As I recall," Elijah says, "it was Damon who turned your mother into a vampire."

"And we all know what happened to him," Bonnie says, stopping short and turning to face him. "Don't we?"

She would love for him to admit that he knows. If Elena won't do it, maybe Elijah will. Then they can all stop pretending and speak openly. No more veiled words and maybe threats. Just certainty. Are they friends or are they enemies? She's always known the answer when it comes to Elena. It's the same with Elijah. Elena is her friend. Elijah is not. Now Elena may not be her friend either. Elijah's presence seems to make that abundantly clear. Either way, Bonnie will not acknowledge this so called "falling out" first.

Elijah's face remains passive save for a tiny curve of his lips. "That we do, Bonnie." She starts walking again and Elijah keeps pace. "It seemed a terrible way to die. Trapped in a tomb in agonizing pain, dying with helpless family and friends only feet from you, killed by an invisible assailant with a stake. Almost tragic."

_Almost_, Bonnie thinks.

"And Stefan," Elijah goes on, "was a shock to be honest. One day he was here and the next, he was gone. I always found him to be the more...reasonable of the two."

Being slightly less of an asshole than Damon didn't earn Stefan any awards. Or spare his life.

She moves to push the cart down the aisle but Elijah grips the side and holds it in place. "We'll have to get to work on growing Jeremy's mark. Elena's told me you've been working on that yourself. Working very hard, in fact. Several vampires have died at the end of a stake wielded by Jeremy Gilbert." Bonnie fights the urge to set the hand he's placed on her cart on fire. "But I may have a better method."

He finally releases her cart and places his hand behind his back.

"I can have several vampires here by morning, with more coming over time," he says, "ready and willing to take a stake to the heart. After some compulsion, of course."

"We're handling it just fine. And I like our way better." Less compulsion, more certainty that the people they're killing deserve their fates, and absolutely no interaction with Elijah. What's not to like?

"Yes, I'm sure you do."

Elijah walks alongside her as she continues down the aisle. When she stands on the tips of her toes to reach for a box of cookies, he plucks it easily from the top shelf, and drops it into her cart.

Bonnie goes along, not thanking him. She's sure he finds that unforgivably rude, and wishes he would just evaporate already.

_Is there a spell for that?_ she wonders.

"I assure you," Elijah says, "that I have every intention of holding up my end of the bargain."

"Yes, I'm sure you do," she says.

Elijah smiles to himself at the repetition of his words.

"You'll come around to my involvement in time," he says. "We're on the same side after all. I trust you'll be able to convince Tyler and Jeremy to accept my help as well."

"Tyler and Jeremy are perfectly capable of making their own decisions," Bonnie says. "If you want them to trust you, you should talk to them, not me."

"It's my understanding that the three of you have grown _close_ recently," Elijah says. "They're very fond of you, aren't they? I'm sure you could find a way to convince them.'

Like kiss them on dimly lit dance floors.

Elena has been very chatty.

Bonnie turns and keeps walking, determined not to let him to see how he's gotten to her. "Does Klaus know you're back in town?"

Elijah's never been intimidated by Klaus, not even as a hybrid. He's probably already considered, backwards and forwards, what Klaus may do with him now that's returned.

"I"m sure he's discovered that I'm here by now," Elijah says, walking behind her again. "I doubt I'll draw much ire. I'm no threat."

"You want his cure," Bonnie says.

"I see no reason why we can't share it," Elijah says.

"He's your brother. You tell me if he likes to share."

"Don't worry, Bonnie," he says. "I can handle my brother, if need be. And the witch and her friends as well."

He emphasizes the "witch" and Bonnie doesn't look at him.

"Three against one hardly seems like a fair fight," she says.

"I was told there may be only two who remain."

Yes because Tyler's supposed to be dead. "Either way, you're outnumbered," Bonnie says.

"I am an Original," Elijah says. "That counts for something, does it not?"

"Sure, that counts for something," Bonnie admits. _But it means nothing to me. _

"I must admit I'm hoping they will make another appearance," Elijah says. "I'm interested in meeting them face-to-face."

"Careful what you wish for, Elijah," Bonnie says. "Will you leave me alone now so I can finish my shopping?"

"Allow me to detain you for a minute longer," he says. "I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for what happened to your mother. A witch being turned is considered by some to be a fate worse than death. Being cut off from nature that way...It's a true tragedy. I hope vampirism is agreeing with her nonetheless."

The real tragedy is that Elijah is still following her through the supermarket. Above them, the lights flicker. Bonnie catches herself after a few seconds but Elijah glances upward, appearing amused.

"Apology _not_ accepted," she says.

"I gathered," he says. "Have you spoken to your mother recently?"

Bonnie doesn't answer. She still has to get paper towels, toilet paper, and also some oranges because Jeremy's going through an orange phase. And she doesn't want windows to break or any more lights to flicker.

"Elena told me she decided to take a leave of absence from parenting," he continues, "for the second time it seems."

A shelf behind them sways and then topples, spilling bags of chips onto the floor. Elijah doesn't even look back to see.

"I'd really like it if you would take a leave of absence from this conversation," Bonnie says. "Leave me alone. You're on Elena's side. Not mine."

"Is Elena's side no longer your side?"

Elijah's small smile returns. "Then please, continue your errands. I'll be seeing you."

* * *

"It's already done, Jer," Elena says. "Elijah's here. He's on our side. That's the end of it." She looks at him impatiently, waiting for him to give up. They're not little kids anymore. He's not going to bow out just because his older sister says so. It wasn't like he did that a lot when he was little anyway.

"You couldn't have found anyone else?" Jeremy questions. "You had to go to _him? _After what he did to Bonnie?"

"There was no one else," Elena sighs. "You vetoed Klaus. And Elijah apologized for that."

"To _you_," Jeremy says.

"He's apologizing to Bonnie, too," Elena says. "It's part of our deal."

There are a lot of parts to this deal, but Jeremy's pretty sure Elena's left out ninety percent of them.

"What if Elijah's planning on destroying the cure?" he asks. "What if he's trying to punish Klaus again by ruining his chances of ever making another hybrid?"

They have an alliance but it's a shaky one. Elijah has chosen Klaus over Elena before, and there's no reason to think he wouldn't do it again. Whatever he's promised Elena, he could change his mind in an instant.

"He's not," Elena says certainly.

"How can you be sure? You're willing to gamble your chance at humanity on-"

Elena cuts him off. "I don't want the cure."

There's a change.

"You don't?"

"What for?" she says, shrugging her shoulders. "Because I'm sired? It doesn't really matter anymore does it? Damon's dead. Stefan's dead. Everyone's dead."

"I'm not."

If Jeremy being alive was enough for Elena, they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

"I don't need to be human," Elena says. "Elijah wants the cure to use however he wants and I'm fine with that. If I'm human then Klaus gets hybrids. I'll have children. He'll _make_ me have children so there will be _another_ doppelganger whose life he can destroy. I don't want that. I'd rather be this way forever."

Jeremy wants to tell her she won't need to be. They'll kill Klaus and she can be human, get married, and have kids. She can have a life. There will be another doppelganger in a few centuries but she'll never know about Elena or Katherine or the other one whose name Jeremy can't remember. She'll never have to deal with vampires or Originals who want to bleed her dry because Klaus will no longer exist.

But he can't trust Elena with that information. Not yet, maybe not ever.

"And I need to be a vampire," she says. "I can't defend myself as a human."

Defend herself from them. He can't figure out if she's actually afraid of them or if she's just keeping up appearances. Elijah would be a good protector, like she said. But he'd be just as good for offense as defense and Jeremy doesn't know what position Elena's put him in.

"You can," Jeremy says. "I am."

"You're a Hunter. It's not the same as being human."

"Alaric was human," Jeremy points out, "and a hunter. He did just fine."

"Until he died," Elena says. "Alaric's _dead_. That's what happens to humans in this town. They die."

Their parents, Jenna, and John.

"So do vampires."

Damon and Stefan. Does Elena think she's next? Does she think they'll kill her?

Elena frowns. "So do Hunters."

Connor and one who showed up after him. Jeremy's still alive but for how long? And will it be his sister who kills him?

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where Elijah isn't the only one with a knack for intimidation.

* * *

Bonnie returns from the store and drops the bags onto the kitchen counter loudly while Jeremy tells Tyler about his talk with Elena earlier. He' s not sure what they're working with. A desperate, fearful Elena who can't be human again because she can't be vulnerable? Or a determined, vengeful Elena who can't be human because it'll make going against the three of them harder?

"I'm calling a meeting!" Bonnie says.

Tyler and Jeremy exchange looks. It's never been so official. They join her in the kitchen where she's unpacking the bags, slamming things onto the counter top and opening and closing cabinets so their contents rattle.

"What's going on?" Jeremy asks.

"Vervain for you," Bonnie says, passing Tyler a paper bag. He peeks inside and finds that it's filled with the thin plants. Even the smell of it bothers him. "Take it now."

"Bossy this evening," Tyler says as he pours himself a glass of water. He drops a strand of vervain inside and swirls it around for a moment. He wants to tell Bonnie to continue on with this meeting she's called but she's staring at him pointedly, waiting for him to swallow it down like she doesn't think he will. Jeremy's also looking at him expectantly. When Tyler finally drinks it, he starts coughing instantly. It burns his teeth, his tongue, his throat. Everything. Even throwing it up would burn.

Jeremy slaps Tyler's back as if that'll help. He appreciates the sentiment anyway.

"Every day," Bonnie says. "No matter how much it hurts, okay?"

She's _really_ bossy. He thinks that's kinda hot, too. "Did something happen?"

Satisfied, Bonnie turns away to pull out a jug of orange juice and put in the refrigerator.

"I ran into Elijah at the store," she answers.

Elijah does grocery shopping?

Bonnie continues. "We have to dagger him."

* * *

**Thank you for reading and also for taking the time to leave reviews. Also, I apologize that this show has made "daggering" and all its variants into words and I'm forced to use them. **


	6. Repetition

Repetition

"We have to dagger him."

That's all it takes.

The three of them gather around the kitchen table to plan. Jeremy peels an orange with rapid fingers. "I'm all for daggering an Original," Tyler says, "but how?"

"With a dagger," Jeremy says.

"Yeah but how do we get one?"

"We steal it."

"That easy, huh?" Tyler says.

Bonnie smiles a little. "It won't be easy but that's never stopped us."

If they wanted easy, they would have skipped this town together months ago._  
_

"We need to get into the mansion," Tyler says. "Klaus does leave occasionally. It's just a matter of keeping him out long enough to find where he's hidden the daggers."

"Elijah will be there, too," Jeremy says. "We'll have to work around them both. And what happens once we dagger him? Won't Klaus be pissed?"

"Pissed that someone daggered Elijah for him? No," Tyler says. "Not if we return Elijah's body to him." He's very possessive of the prone bodies of his siblings.

"And have Klaus undagger him?" Jeremy says incredulously. "No way."

"He won't undagger him," Bonnie says. "He likes his siblings best when they're not awake. He'll love it."

The hard part will be making sure no one knows it was them. If they sabotage Elena's plans with Elijah, Caroline and Matt will question it, not to mention Elena will undoubtedly piece together that they know she knows.

"We have to get it right the first time," Tyler says. "No screw-ups and no surprises. And we do it fast. We'll have to dagger him as soon as we get the dagger, at least before Klaus realizes it's missing."

The last thing they need is Klaus tearing the town apart looking for it. Its disappearance will be made apparent to everyone, including Elijah and Elena, who will surely know they've taken it. It won't be hard for them to figure out what the three of them plan to do with it either. They're already on guard. It doesn't need to be made worse.

"I do the daggering," Bonnie says. "Deal?"

Tyler can't do it anyway.

"That's fine with me," Jeremy says.

Tyler can't wait to see it. Bonnie with a dagger in hand. Bonnie slipping it into Elijah's heart. It's gonna be hot.

"We'll look for the dagger tomorrow," Bonnie says. "Me and Tyler will distract Klaus and Elijah somehow. You," she nods to Jeremy, "go to the mansion and find the dagger. Wait for us to tell you you're clear though. Okay?"

"Okay," Jeremy says. "We good?"

"We're good."

"Then I'm going to take a shower."

Jeremy disappears up the stairs and Tyler looks back to Bonnie, who is scratching at the table. "Elijah really rattled you, didn't he?"

And he thought he was the only one with Original baggage. Now that he thinks about it, Jeremy may have some of his own with Kol.

"Today has been..." Bonnie sighs heavily and pushes her hair off of her face. "It's amazing really how one conversation with one person could ruin my whole day."

"Then allow me," Tyler says, "to make it a little better." He finds Bonnie's vodka hidden under the sink and grabs the ice cream from the freezer. "We've waited too long to do this anyway." He grabs two spoons and two glasses then pours vodka for them both.

"Elena told him what she saw at the bar," Bonnie says as he passes her glass to her.

"She got a good show," he says.

Tyler wonders when that news will reach Caroline. Probably around the same time the news of them killing Damon and Stefan does, whenever Elena chooses to drop that particular bomb.

"You're not still freaking out about that are you?" he asks.

"No," she answers. "Not really. That's the least of our worries, right?"

"Right," he agrees. Whatever it is they're doing - or not doing - is nothing compared to having to dagger Elijah and kill Klaus and maybe fight off Elena. They clink their glasses against one another and swallow down their contents. After the vervain, the burn of the alcohol is barely there.

"Now for the good stuff," he says, opening the ice cream. The taste is still terrible, right after the vodka, but after a couple bites it fades.

"That coin toss could have gone either way," Bonnie says. "I had a fifty percent chance of being turned into a vampire that night."

Even now that they're dead, he still hates Stefan and Damon for everything they did, for Hayley, for Mason, for his pack, and for Bonnie who barely won that coin toss.

Tyler leans on the counter and looks at her. "I'm sorry about your mom, but I'm glad it wasn't you."

Bonnie hums down at the ice cream. "You don't think I'd make a good vampire?"

"You'd be good no matter what," he says. "But I can't picture you without your magic." She _is_ magic. In everything she does. Without it, he doesn't know what she would be, if she would even want to be anything without it.

"You can only be one," Bonnie says. "Vampire or witch. Dead or alive. It works for you though." She pauses for a moment then asks, "Would you use the cure?"

Tyler doesn't need to think about it. "No. I don't ever want to have to turn again. I don't want to have to tie myself up, drink wolfsbane, cross my fingers, and hope the chains hold. And," he adds, "I don't want the pain."

He probably sounds like a coward. There are probably lots of werewolves out there who take the pain without complaint, and then there's Tyler. He tells Bonnie so.

"You're not a coward, Tyler. I promise you you're not," Bonnie says. "There's nothing wrong with not wanting to feel pain. Isn't that what everyone wants? Not to hurt?" She leans against him and rests her chin on his shoulder. She speaks into his ear. "You're not a coward. You're the bravest guy I know."

Tyler smiles when she pulls away and squeezes his arm. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she says before popping a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

"Would you give the cure to your mom?"

"If she wanted it," Bonnie says. "If she was actually around to tell me she wanted it."

But she's not.

He's supposed to be making her feel better not worse.

"You have some ice cream on your lip," Tyler says. Before she can wipe it away, he does it for her. He holds her gaze as he sucks his finger, smeared with ice cream, into his mouth.

"I almost broke the supermarket," she says. She's trying to change the subject and direct it somewhere away from her lips and his fingers and the ice cream on them both.

He lets her. "Yeah?"

She nods.

"You didn't though?"

"No," she says. "I mean the lights flickered a little and I knocked over a shelf."

Tyler laughs to himself.

"What?" she asks.

"Nothing," he says. "Me and Jeremy were talking about that yesterday."

"About what?"

"You breaking things."

She raises an eyebrow. "What about it?"

He doesn't know if Jeremy's gonna kill him or not for telling her, but whatever. "We think it's hot."

Bonnie seems to think about that for a second and then she smiles nervously. "You do?"

He takes a step toward her so there's only a foot or so between them. "Yeah. I mean, you're always hot. You're just especially hot when you're breaking things - doing magic in general. And when you're telling me what to do. I like that, too."

Slowly, a smile forms on her face. "Then I'll have to keep it up."

His eyes fall to her lips and he knows she noticed. If he kissed her now, he would definitely taste the cookie dough ice cream, like he dreamed he did once. He remembers he and Jeremy decided they were allowed to kiss Bonnie if she kissed them first, but they didn't talk about kissing her themselves. Is he allowed to? Does Bonnie have to initiate it?

It's too complicated. He doesn't want to risk it.

He kisses her cheek. "Night, Bonnie."

* * *

Bonnie and Tyler find an empty table at the Grill. Klaus is at the counter chatting amiably with an older woman. Bonnie vaguely recognizes her. She used to be good friends with Tyler's mom and was her second in command in organizing town events. She glances around for Elena and Elijah but doesn't see them, but Caroline was sure they'd be here because Elena wants to make sure people know Elijah's back in town and that he and Elena are friendly now. If they're being watched by the people who killed Stefan and Damon they'll know they're dealing with an Original vampire now, and it might deter them.

Hardly but Bonnie admires them for trying.

"What are they saying?" Bonnie asks, nodding toward Klaus and the woman as she punches out a text to Jeremy.

_Klaus is here. No Elijah. Wait._

Tyler cranes his head to look. "She's thanking him for his help."

"With what?"

Help from Klaus is not help anyone should be glad to have.

They don't get their answer because the woman slips away from the counter, swinging her bag over her shoulder. She wiggles her fingers in Tyler's direction as she heads out the door.

"Good afternoon."

Bonnie inhales as Klaus slides into the seat next to her. Well at least they didn't have to approach him.

"It was," Tyler says through gritted teeth.

"Allow me to extend an invitation to you both," Klaus says. "Being the good citizen of Mystic Falls that I am, I have volunteered my home for a fundraiser."

"A fundraiser?" Bonnie says skeptically. Her gaze is drawn to the entrance where Elena has just come in, followed at a polite distance by Elijah, in _another_ suit. _Does he have any other outfits?__  
_

Klaus nods. "It appears a few hopeful historians at Whitmore College are looking to impress upon us all the historical significance of the Salvatore boarding house. The combination of free liquor and deep pockets will ensure the renovation of what remains. It'll be perfect attracting tourists. Or so I'm told."

Tyler's seen Elena and Elijah, too. With Klaus so close to her Bonnie can't send Jeremy a text, but Tyler pulls out his phone. His fingers speed over the keys and his phone is back in pocket in seconds before he turns his attention back to Klaus. "They asked _you_ to host?"

"I'm very passionate about history," Klaus says. "Next Friday. Cocktail attire. Expect an invitation in a few days. Tyler, should I make sure yours is sent to Bonnie's home? Jeremy's as well?"

"Oh, are _we_ invited to this party?" Bonnie says sarcastically. "After my invite to the last one got lost in the mail, I assumed you didn't like me."

Klaus laughs slightly, sounding very much like Elijah. "Don't be silly, love. I'm very fond of you. Not as fond as Tyler is, of course, but the sentiment remains."

Bonnie glances to Tyler across the table and wonders how Klaus knows how "fond" he is of her at all. Tyler has his eyes closed, and he's shaking his head like he just wants this whole thing to end.

"Will you save me a dance?" Klaus asks.

Bonnie almost laughs. "No."

He takes her rejection in stride. "Yes, I imagine Tyler and Jeremy are keeping your dance card quite full," Klaus says. "No matter. I'm sure Caroline will be able to make room for me." He looks to Tyler as if to gauge his reaction, which isn't much different from Tyler's usual reaction to him. His body riddled with tension, his fists balled up, and there's a persistent ticking in his jaw.

"Either way," Klaus continues, "I look forward to seeing you both there." He looks like he's about to leave.

"Will your brother also be there?" Bonnie asks, before he can go.

"Most likely," Klaus says. "Unless I decide to dagger him before then."

Elijah's heard him because he raises a glass (curiously it looks like it might be a coke) in their direction. Klaus answers with a smirk. "Don't tell me you'll be allowing my brother a dance, Bonnie," he says. "I assure you, I'm much better on my feet."

"I'd sooner let you touch me," Bonnie says. "And I would _never_ let you touch me."

Klaus laughs again. Have he and Elijah always sounded so alike? "Tyler, I do admire your taste in women. So..._fiery_."

"I can show you fiery," Bonnie promises which earns her another Elijah-like chuckle from Klaus.

It's more likely he simply enjoys ruining Tyler's day. If there's anything Klaus is good at, it's making Tyler miserable. Bonnie wants to tell him he can leave and she'll distract Klaus on her own, but she suspects Klaus won't find her half as interesting if Tyler's not around to see.

She just hopes Jeremy hurries up.

* * *

Jeremy finds the coffins. They're lined up in an opulent room, with burgundy walls and polished hardwood floors. It looks a bit like a funeral home, which he supposes is appropriate. He opens them one by one. Four are empty. One for Elijah and one for Kol. One for Finn, one for Esther, both dead and gone. Rebekah's is the last.

Her mother dead, one brother turned to ash as well, and three brothers wandering the world while she's in a coffin with a dagger in her heart. Two are in in town, living in that very house, and neither will awaken her.

It's kinda sad when he thinks about it like that.

He knows that if he pulled the dagger from her heart, she'd be up and killing in an hour or so, but it's still a strange sight. He can't imagine doing that to Elena, but then again, if he stabbed Elena through the heart with a stake, she'd never wake up again. Rebekah will see daylight again, whenever Klaus allows her to, whenever that will be.

She really got the sucky end of the sibling stick.

Jeremy closes the lid of the coffin and searches the room. He pulls open drawers, looks underneath the coffins, checks closets and cabinets alike. He scours the living room, so full of shiny, expensive looking crap it would take him hours to sift through all of it. The bedrooms are similarly empty, even the one he gathers must belong to Klaus if the scattered drawings are any indication. He glimpses a few of Caroline and decides not to share that information with Tyler. Or anyone else for that matter because it's weird.

He sends Tyler a text. _Still looking._

_Hurry up. Klaus is flirting with Bonnie._

Jeremy would demand an explanation but it would be better just to find the damn dagger. He searches the other bedrooms. It's going to take forever to do them all.

_I can't find them_, he says.

_Try harder._

"Oh thanks I didn't think of that," Jeremy says down to his phone. Still, he gives it another shot.

Klaus has hidden them well. He must have to with more siblings than he's used to wandering around, even if they aren't in Mystic Falls. If he loses a dagger, he loses his power, and Klaus is nothing without his power.

_The only dagger here is the one in Rebekah, _Jeremy says. And they definitely don't want that one.

_Elijah's leaving anyway. Meet us at home. _

Jeremy goes out the front door and back out to Tyler's car. The whole way back he tries to think of somewhere else Klaus would have hidden the daggers. He'd want them nearby to be used when he wanted, but with Elijah back in town maybe he decided to put them in a more secure location. But where would that be?

Jeremy pulls up to the curb in front of Bonnie's and gets out of the car to see Elijah standing on the porch. "Jeremy," he says with a nod.

"Elijah. What do you want?"

"I was looking for you," the Original answers, coming down the steps. "We have work to do."

Before Jeremy can ask what work that would be, Elijah is speeding toward him. He takes hold of Jeremy in an iron grip and the world turns to a dizzying blur as Elijah carries him away.

When Elijah releases him - more like throws him - it's onto the ground in the middle of the woods. Jeremy pulls himself to his feet and realizes where he's standing. It's a tiny clearing but around him, gathered in a neat circle, are people. Vampires. They're standing completely still, though they're staring at him. There are at least thirty of them. "What the hell?" Jeremy snaps.

Elijah tosses Jeremy a stake. It falls to his feet. "I've compelled them to kill you," he says. "To give you a bit of a chance, I've limited their abilities. They will run at a normal pace."

"Thanks for that," Jeremy says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He reaches for his phone and glances at the screen. The signal is weak out here but it's there. He sends a text to Tyler.

Elijah's beginning to remind Jeremy a lot of Stefan. Only Elijah's older and better dressed. If Jeremy was going to end up at an outdoor version of Nex, he would have prepared himself better for it. He would have at least told Tyler and Bonnie in advance.

"Does Elena know you're doing this?"

Elijah doesn't answer.

There are more than there were at the bar. There were maybe a dozen there. Maybe. Here Jeremy's more than outnumbered with vampires whose sole ambition is to spill his blood all over the forest floor.

_Fucking vampires_.

"If they kill me they'll be cursed," Jeremy reminds Elijah, picking up the stake.

Elijah's eyebrows barely twitch at the notion. "Yes, I know." He keeps his eyes on Jeremy when he speaks. "Let the game begin."

Jeremy does the only thing he can think of, the only thing that might work.

He runs.

The vampires came at once, as if they were simultaneously released from invisible cages. They were awaiting Elijah's word. As soon as they got it, they were off. Before they were still, calm even. Now they're feral. Thirty or more of the vampire from the other day at the bar. Bloodthirsty, mindless, and chasing him.

_Fucking vampires._

One is a pretty good runner, even without his vampire speed, and he catches up. Elijah didn't tell them not to use their strength. He tackles Jeremy to the ground and they both roll. Jeremy comes out on top and plunges the stake into the vampire's chest. He doesn't get to see him go limp and gray because he's tugging the stake from his chest and running again. The others are still coming.

One down, another twenty-nine to go.

The next one that catches up is a woman. He doesn't notice anything about her but her red eyes and her strong fingers tearing at his skin. She doesn't draw blood though she will soon. Once that happens all bets will be off. He shoves the stake into her chest, but he misses the heart by a mere fraction. Now he's just pissed her off. He pulls it free and tries again. This time it goes where it's supposed to.

_Thank God._

The next one is on him before Jeremy can throw the woman off. His fangs are already bared, and he's so close Jeremy can smell his rancid breath and see a hint of blood on his teeth.

Then he hears a loud snapping and is staring at the back of the vampire's head. Tyler pulls the vampire off Jeremy and flings him to the side. "Got it, Gilbert?"

Jeremy's never been so relieved to see him. "Shut up. Where's Bonnie?"

"She's calling Elena," Tyler says, "but she's coming. What happened?"

"Elijah's compelled a bunch of vampires to kill me," Jeremy explains.

"What for?"

"To grow my mark," Jeremy says.

Or just to kill him?

Suddenly Jeremy doesn't know how to feel about Elena being called.

"How many?" Tyler asks.

"Too many," Jeremy answers.

For some reason the vampires aren't in much of a hurry. He squints through the darkness, trying to make out any movement, but sees nothing.

"I hear them," Tyler says.

That makes one of them.

Jeremy's about to tell Tyler they should keep running, at least until Bonnie shows, but a shape bursts through the trees to launch itself at Tyler. His fingers tightening around the stake, Jeremy moves to help, but someone gets hold of his shoulder and wrenches him around.

It's the second time in recent memory there have been fangs in his neck. The last time was at that bar with Stefan.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where history is always repeating.

Jeremy can hear Tyler, calling his name, and then the vampire is lifted from him and tossed away. Jeremy sees the vampire hit a tree and crumple to the ground. Elena hovers above him, her face looking familiarly concerned. "Are you okay?" she asks, extending her hands.

Jeremy grabs one of them but uses his other to touch his neck. His fingers come away bloody.

"What's going on?" she demands.

"We're growing Jeremy's Mark." Elijah appears in the darkness, his suit so dark it seems to blend into the trees. Another vampire is at his side, red haired and willowy. She speeds toward Jeremy, but Tyler catches her with one hand and throws her to the ground.

"Stop them," Elena hisses. "This isn't what I brought you here for." Elijah turns to her, his head tilted to the side. He looks like he's on the verge of saying something but Elena repeats herself. "_Stop it_."

Jeremy's hand is still glued to his neck. The bite wasn't deep enough to do any significant damage. He'll be alright for awhile but Elena still offers her wrist, ripped open and bleeding. He takes it and feels the wound begin to heal.

"_Elijah_," Elena says when Jeremy's released her.

The Original turns his head to her. He regards her with a cool expression, but he doesn't move. "Elena."

Then he's doubled over, collapsing onto one knee. He doesn't scream. Elijah Mikaelson probably finds screaming to be undignified. He does grimace, clutching at his body like he's being torn open. Jeremy doesn't see Bonnie until she's at the edge of the trees, stepping through mud and dirt and leaves, her gaze fixed on Elijah's huddled form.

"Listen to her," Bonnie says, "or I will kill you."

Elijah cranes his neck to see her. "The last time you were going to kill one of us, it would have destroyed you to do it," he reminds her.

Bonnie smirks. She steps into a sliver of moonlight which illuminates her face and hair. The wind catches her curls and pulls them across her face. "That was last time."

She releases him and the Original gets to his feet. He's going to be very upset about the state his suit is in, now wrinkled and dirty. He glances toward Elena and then toward Bonnie. With a quiet sigh, he straightens his jacket. "Very well."

One by one, he picks up the ones who are still alive, shaking them back into consciousness. "You will leave," Elijah says. "Do not return to Mystic Falls." When he's finished, he looks to Elena. "Satisfied?"

"Is that all of them?" Elena asks.

"The others are back there," Bonnie says, motioning through the trees. Whatever she did to them, they're down. "Tell them to go, too."

"Then I'll be satisfied," Elena says.

Elijah slips his hands into his pockets and starts walking through the trees without another word to any of them.

As he disappears, Elena spins back around to face Jeremy. "I didn't know he would do that. I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Jeremy says. "We're fine. Right, Ty?"

"Right," Tyler says bitterly. He steps over one of the bodies and walks past Elena. "You should get Elijah back on his leash before he gets Jeremy killed."

Elena doesn't respond.

Tyler and Bonnie start walking away together but they move slowly. They don't want to leave Jeremy alone with her.

As he passes her, Elena reaches for his arm. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Jeremy searches her face, trying to see if this concern she's showing is real. The last time this happened, when Stefan was alive and off the rails, Elena was furious. She was furious enough to send Stefan on his way and not speak to him anymore. Now Elijah's done the same thing, and he can't tell if this was what Elena wanted. If Bonnie hadn't gone to her, would Elena have stopped this at all? Did she really not know about it? He can't tell. He only remembers her words from yesterday.

_So do hunters._

"I'm fine," Jeremy says, pulling his arm away. He walks fast to catch up with Bonnie and Tyler.

When they get home, Tyler's in a bad mood. Elijah's got a gift for it apparently. He goes upstairs to shower and Bonnie passes Jeremy a wet towel to wipe the blood from his neck. "Do you think she knew?" he asks. Bonnie knows who he's talking about.

"I don't know," she answers. "She came as soon as I called."

"She seemed worried."

"Yeah," Bonnie agrees.

But the three of them have perfected the art of feigning concern. How many times did Bonnie comfort Elena after Damon died? Didn't Jeremy offer sympathy after Stefan was gone? How often did Tyler look Caroline in the eye and pretend not to hate Stefan and Damon as much as he did?

They aren't the only ones who can pretend.

* * *

**Thank you for reading and for your reviews!**


	7. Suit and Dagger

**I was going to include another chapter before this fundraiser thingy but then I decided not to because it would be mostly filler and we don't need filler. That being said, this is longer than usual as it begins a very exciting sequence of events. ****Thank you for reading and for all your reviews!**

* * *

Suit and Dagger

_So do hunters._

Even hunters with magic Gilbert rings can die.

"Even if they did kill me," Jeremy says, turning his gaze to the passing houses outside the car, "I would have come back so it's not that big of a deal."

He feels Tyler's eyes boring into him and when Jeremy turns his way he finds Tyler blinking, waiting for him to add something else. When he doesn't, Tyler says, "Are you seriously trying to make yourself believe it's not _that_ bad if Elena was trying to kill you a few nights ago because you'd just get up afterward?"

He's been thinking about it for awhile, in between avoiding all contact with Elena, and figuring out plans for the fundraiser with Bonnie and Tyler. He threw himself into those. Mainly there's one objective: Bonnie finds a dagger. Even though Jeremy assured them he went through the entire house and came up empty, Tyler and Bonnie thought she should give it a try with her magic to be sure, but Jeremy's almost positive they think he didn't look hard enough.

"Gilbert," Tyler continues, "rings can come off. If any of those vampires had gotten that ring off your hand we might not be having this conversation right now. not to mention we should be trying to keep your death tally low. Do you want to run around town having blackouts and killing people?"

Jeremy doesn't have to answer that either because Tyler pulls up in front of the Gilbert house. Elena's car isn't there. "She's not here," Jeremy says with a sigh, opening the door. His suit, however, is. He can't show up to the fundraiser in jeans. "Come on."

Tyler sighs heavily. It's like just being there is exhausting. Still, he follows Jeremy up the porch steps and into the house.

Or at least he tries to.

He's stopped at the door.

"What's wrong?" Jeremy asks. Tyler stares up at the threshold with his hands on either side of the door.

"I can't come in."

"Why not?"

"The usual reason," Tyler says bitterly, taking a step away from the door. "My invitation was revoked."

Jeremy's about to ask how Elena managed that, but he remembers they aren't the only ones with magic on their team. "Ramona's still in it," he says. And here they were hoping all she'd do was saddle them with Elijah. "Why would Elena have her do that?"

"The same reason Bonnie did," Tyler answers. He sighs again. At least this time he's got cause. "Go get your suit," he says. "I'll text Bonnie."

"Do you want me to invite you in again?" Jeremy asks. As far as problems go, this one is easy to fix.

"Don't bother," Tyler says. "We don't know if Ramona will know somehow. It's fine. I'll wait in the car."

* * *

Bonnie forgot how much she hates shopping. At least she forgot how much she hates shopping alone. She hasn't had to do that...ever. It's always been Caroline or Elena or both of them. Now she can't call Elena because she doesn't know if Elena's trying to kill her or not and she can't call Caroline because they haven't spoken since Bonnie shattered the window at Elena's house and Bonnie refuses to be the first to make contact when it's Caroline who owes her an apology. But she has to find something to wear for this fundraiser thing. Tyler and Jeremy are great but they know nothing about clothes.

Though she now guesses they'd be able to tell her what she looks hot in.

"Bonnie."

She turns and it's Caroline standing behind her. It's not too unusual that she'd be here. There's only one decent dress place in town.

"Haven't talked to you in a while," Caroline says.

"Yeah," Bonnie says.

"Bonnie," Caroline sighs, "I'm sorry about what happened at Elena's. I didn't mean to...I know what Elijah did. I haven't forgotten."

"Seemed like you had."

"Bonnie," Caroline says again, in that familiar pleading tone, "I'm just trying to look on the bright side here. We have help now, and I know you don't think we need it but we do."

"That _help_ almost got Jeremy killed a few nights ago," Bonnie says.

"What?"

"Elena didn't tell you?"

"I haven't talked to her in a few days either," Caroline says. "I thought she was doing that thing where she wants to be alone again. What happened with Jeremy?"

Bonnie explains the woods and the compulsion and the random vampires chasing Jeremy through the woods. "Well, his ring would have worked wouldn't it?" Caroline questions.

"That's not the point," Bonnie says. "Besides, unless we want another Alaric on our hands we should be doing our best to make sure Jeremy doesn't ever die again."

"You're right," Caroline says, but Bonnie can't tell if she actually agrees or if she's just avoiding an argument. "I'm sorry. Can I help you pick out a dress for Friday?"

This is Caroline's idea of a peace offering. Considering how inept Bonnie's been in the past half hour she's been looking around, it's a pretty good one.

"Please?" Caroline says, clasping her hands together.

Bonnie throws up her hands. "Okay."

"So I think you should go with the classic little black dress." She sifts through the racks while Bonnie watches her work. "So are you taking a date?"

"If that's your way of asking me if Tyler's my date, then my answer is no."

"Oh," Caroline says. "What about Jeremy?"

It wasn't like Bonnie hadn't considered it, even for a second. It seems like too much of a pairing type thing and she doesn't want to go there, not when she's not sure what she thinks about the two of them. And it was an unspoken thing. They'd show up together, in the same car, and Bonnie will dance with them both if the night goes that way, but that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not the right venue for an impromptu make out session on the dance floor, and they'll be in very mixed company so at least they're covered on that front.

"I'm going by myself," Bonnie says. "We're all going by ourselves."

Her phone buzzes in her purse and she digs it out. A text from Tyler is on the screen. _Ramona's still helping Elena. Revoked my invite to Gilbert house._

Bonnie bites down on her lip and tries to think. It's hard to do with Caroline pointing out the pros and cons of actually wearing underwear to the fundraiser. There will be panty-lines and Caroline knows Bonnie hates to wear thongs, but the dress will demand smoothness.

What if Lucy was wrong about Ramona? What if she's not as intimidated by the Bennett line as they thought?

"I have to use the bathroom," Bonnie tells Caroline. She doesn't wait for Caroline's response but hurries into the corner restrooms where she locks herself in and turns on all the faucets just to be safe. She leans against the sinks as she dials Lucy's number.

"Hello, Bonnie," Lucy says. "My favorite cousin. How are you?"

"Good," Bonnie says, "but I think I need your help again."

"Oh?"

"I need Ramona to go away," Bonnie says. "And I might have a way to do that. Can you help me?"

"Definitely."

Bonnie tells Lucy everything and leaves her with her home address.

"I'll see you Friday," Lucy promises.

When Bonnie rejoins Caroline, the blond holds up a black dress with a single sleeve. Well, she might be able to hide a dagger up that sleeve at least. "This is the one! Go put it on."

* * *

"We're gonna be late!" Tyler calls. So far he's the only one ready for this thing. Caroline always used to say there was a lot that went into preparing for these things so Bonnie taking a little extra time is no huge surprise, but Tyler has no clue what Jeremy's doing up there. If Tyler's ready, Jeremy can be ready.

Bonnie comes down a few minutes later, taking the steps slowly as she clasps a bracelet onto her wrist.

"You look great," Tyler says as she hits the landing.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I don't look boring?"

"You could never look boring," Tyler assures her.

"It's just so black," Bonnie says.

It's also tight but not _too _tight. And short but not _too_ short. They're going to be partying with a lot of people who have known them since they were in diapers. There's no reason to show them just how much they've grown up, even though Tyler is using his imagination.

"You look good in a suit," Bonnie says, slipping her purse under her arm so she can straighten his tie.

"Thanks," Tyler said as her fingers drop to his wrist where she fingers the shell bracelet that rests there.

She sighs down at it, but he can see the hint of a smile teasing at her lips. "This doesn't go with your outfit."

"Yeah, it does," Tyler says. "It goes with everything." If he wears it with everything then it must be true.

Bonnie doesn't get the chance to say anything back because someone rings the doorbell. "That's Lucy," she says, hurrying to answer it.

"Lucy?" He remembers Bonnie mentioning asking for her help again, but he didn't realize she'd be coming in person.

When Bonnie opens the door, Tyler sees it _is_ Lucy in jeans and a leather jacket, her honey colored hair pulled into a ponytail. "I know I'm late," she says, "but I'm here now so whatever. You look great by the way," she adds as she pulls Bonnie into a hug. "Why don't I get to come to the party?"

"Because I don't want Klaus or Elijah knowing there's another Bennett witch in town," Bonnie says. "You're in and you're out. No lingering."

"No lingering," Lucy says dully. "Scout's honor." Her eyes land on Tyler and she grins.

Tyler feels his face get hot. Or as hot as a dead werewolf's face can get.

"You clean up nice," Lucy says. She adjusts his tie just like Bonnie did, even though Tyler thinks it's pretty straight now.

"Thank you," Tyler says, feeling even hotter. It must be a Bennett thing, having this effect. "It's good to see you again."

"It's good to see _you_ again," Lucy says. She winks. "If you know what I mean."

"I do," Tyler says. Bonnie gives her head an amused shake at Lucy's side. "Thank you. And thank you for helping us with Ramona, too."

"You're welcome, handsome. So, are you two going to this thingy together?"

"No," Bonnie says. "We're all just showing up together."

Jeremy comes down the stairs then with his jacket slung over his arm as he struggles with the button on his shirt sleeve. He pauses at the bottom when he sees Lucy. "Hi," he says. "I thought I heard the doorbell."

"You also know how to wear a suit," Lucy says. "We haven't officially met. I'm Lucy." She extends a ringed hand and Jeremy leans forward to shake it.

"The Hunter's Mark," Lucy comments peering at Jeremy's arm, where all Tyler sees is white, unmarked skin. "The _best_ ink."

"I'm pretty fond of it," Jeremy says with a smile.

"Bonnie," Lucy says, "are you telling me you're sharing a house with these two fine gentlemen and you don't want to take either of them as your date?"_  
_

Bonnie looks back and forth between the two of them. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. And _you_ should get going because you've got work to do."

"I do," Lucy agrees.

Bonnie pulls something from her purse. It's a small black box. She lifts the lid and shows its contents to Lucy. "That'll work," Lucy says, looking impressed. "If I find her, it should get her off your back."

"What is that?" Jeremy asks.

"The calcified bone Shane gave me," Bonnie says.

"Very valuable in witch circles," Lucy says, taking the box from Bonnie's hands. "This plus your promise _not_ to make her life miserable should do the trick."

"Good," Bonnie says. "Call when you're done?"

Lucy nods and slips the box into her bag. "Will do. Have fun tonight."

"It's a fundraiser," Bonnie tells her. "A boring one."

"Nothing's boring when a Bennett witch is involved," Lucy says. "And be careful on your dagger hunt. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. There are actually very few things I wouldn't do so I think you're safe."

"Good to know," Bonnie says as Lucy opens up the front door. "Thanks."

"What's family for?" She hugs Bonnie again. "See you later, boys."

"Bye," Jeremy says while Tyler raises his hand in a wave and calls out that he hopes to see her again soon.

When the door has closed behind her, Bonnie looks at them and sighs. "You two are so transparent. Let's go."

* * *

They've only been in the Mikaelson manor for a few minutes before Klaus approaches, channeling Elijah in his own tailored suit. The other brother is nowhere in sight, for now at least. "Care to make a donation?" he asks.

Tyler sighs heavily. "We can't even have a few minutes to get settled before you're here to bother us."

"It's for a good cause," Klaus says, ignoring him.

_ Nothing Salvatore related is a good cause, _Tyler thinks.

"Don't make me compel it out of you."

"Don't make me set you on fire," Bonnie responds.

Klaus chuckles to himself before he's beckoned away by a thoroughly charmed older woman. The three of them glance around for a bit, looking at the wandering waitstaff carrying around silver trays of finger foods. Classical music is playing over the speakers and there's a bar in the corner, which is already very popular with the over-21 crowd.

"Shane?" Bonnie exclaims.

A curly haired man Tyler recognizes as the Fratty Professor breaks loose of the horde of people surrounding the bar.

"Bonnie," Shane says leaning to give her a hug. "It's good to see you. You look really nice."

Bonnie ignores the compliment. "What are you doing here?"

"My boss is engaged to the head of the history department, and this is her pet project, and he _suggested_ we all turn out to show our support tonigh_t."_

"You shouldn't be here," Bonnie says. "Remember when I told you _not_ to associate with Original vampires?"

"We're in a public place, Bonnie," Shane says. "I'm fine."

Welcome to Mystic Falls where that is entirely inaccurate.

Bonnie lets him know. "They'll snap your neck and then compel everyone to forget."

If they even bother with the compulsion.

"I'll be fine," Shane insists.

Bonnie still looks annoyed. "Don't go anywhere by yourself. Stay in this room where we can keep an eye on you."

"I come out for a nice night of dignified, _adult_ conversation and alcohol consumption," Shane says, "and I've got three teenagers babysitting me."

"There are worse people for the job," Jeremy tells him.

"Well don't let me spoil your fun either way," Shane says. "I'll just be over here mingling. The danger quotient is very low."

"Be sure to limit your mingling to all the harmless humans," Tyler says. He pities the Original who tries to hurt Shane while Bonnie's here, especially while Shane is so thoroughly unconcerned with it.

He raises his glass. "Of course."

"Bonnie," Jeremy says, "wanna dance?"

"Sure," Bonnie says. She looks back to Tyler. "Hold my bag?"

"Gladly."

"Thanks," Bonnie says as he takes it from her hand. She smiles and he feels his heart take an extra beat. "You get the next one."

"Can't wait."

She spares a nervous look at Shane, who is examining the tray of a passing waiter. "I'll keep an eye on him," Tyler promises. "You guys go."

* * *

"Morbidity aside," Jeremy says as he pulls Bonnie with him onto the dance floor, "this isn't the worst town function we've ever been to."

Bonnie matches his smile with one of her own. "No, we've been to ones that were way worse." But the night's still young and Bonnie's still got a dagger to find. There's more than enough time for something to go terribly, terribly wrong.

"It's kinda nice," Jeremy adds.

"Kinda."

She looks over his shoulder to where Tyler is holding up the wall and playing with his cell phone.

Jeremy turns his head to see. "We could invite him over," he says.

Bonnie's eyes widen until she realizes he's joking then she laughs. "The old ladies in the room wouldn't appreciate it."

"Do you think they can hear us right now?" Jeremy asks.

"The old ladies?"

"No. Vampires."

"Oh. Probably not," Bonnie says. "With the music and the talking and all. Why?"

"There are just some things I want to say to you," Jeremy says, "and I don't want anyone to hear. Can you...do something? Just in case."

"Yeah," she says immediately. It's a simple spell, creating the tiny little space for them. It muffles their words for all but them. Even the people close enough to overhear would only catch bits and pieces of gibberish.

She's expecting something about Elena or Elijah or the daggers. That's not the subject Jeremy's interested in.

"I just want you to know," he says, "that I'm okay - well I can deal with - whatever's going on with you and Tyler."

"Jeremy-"

"Whatever it is," he says. "I'm not your boyfriend, not anymore, and that's my fault. I told you I wanted to be with you however you'd have me. I meant that. So however long it takes, I'll be here. I love you. Even if you decide you don't want me, or me and Tyler, or whatever, I'll still love you. I'm with you, Bonnie. Always."

Bonnie opens her mouth to say something. She does that at least three times, and she's sure she looks like a gasping fish, but Jeremy only smiles a little. They continue their swaying across the dance floor, and Jeremy's words replay themselves in Bonnie's head.

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

She's feeling a dozen things at once and she can't seem to settle on one. Happiness, relief, love.

"Can I cut in?"

Elena stands at their side in a dark purple dress, her hair hanging over one shoulder. She shoots Jeremy a pleading smile. "Bonnie, do you mind?" she asks.

Bonnie looks to Jeremy whose arms are still around her waist. He raises his eyebrows questioningly. It's up to her. They can stay here and continue having this moment, whatever this moment is now, or they can break apart so Jeremy can dance with his sister. It's up to Bonnie. She lets the spell dissipate just enough that Elena can slip through.

"Just give us a minute," Bonnie says, "then he's all yours."

Elena looks satisfied. "Okay."

Bonnie waits until Elena's disappeared into the crowd to turn her attention back to Jeremy and put them back into their tiny cone of silence.

"I love you, too," she says.

Jeremy smiles his painfully sweet smile.

"But this thing with Tyler," she says. "It's complicated." It may not be love, but it's certainly more than _like_.

"I know."

"You're my friends," Bonnie says. "More than anything you're my friends. I don't want anything to mess it up."

"This isn't messing anything up," Jeremy assures her before pressing a kiss to her lips. It's chaste in comparison to some of the other ones they've shared but they are in a room full of Mystic Falls' wealthiest and most elderly. If they were alone, she'd definitely expect some tongue. "See? That went pretty smoothly."

Bonnie's smiling when she rolls her eyes.

"Ask Tyler," Jeremy says. "He'll tell you. We want whatever you want."

Bonnie can see Elena hanging on the periphery of the room, waiting for Jeremy to become available. Jeremy follows her gaze. "What do you think?" he asks.

"What do _you_ think? You're the one who's gonna be dancing with her."

"I think we'll see," Jeremy says. "I'll find you after."

She should go check on Shane anyway. And she promised Tyler the next dance. "Okay." Jeremy lays another kiss on her lips before letting her go.

Shane is chatting animatedly with a few elderly women. They look politely bored with all his talk of the occult, and Bonnie hurries to relieve them. They're still smiling politely as they glide away together. "Thank God," Shane says. "I kept trying to get them to leave."

"Like you should be doing," Bonnie says.

Shane laughs a little. "I appreciate the concern, Bonnie. I really do. I can handle myself."

"I told you your little tricks aren't going to be enough," Bonnie says. "Klaus and Elijah are bigger than that. I told you I'd look out for you. This is me looking out."

"I know," Shane says with a nod. "Thank you."

"So you'll go home?"

"No," he says. "I promise to steer clear of Klaus and his brother. He hasn't spoken to me in awhile, about the cure or anything else. I think I'm okay."

"Shane," Bonnie says, "please."

"Bonnie, please," Shane says mockingly. "Go have fun with your friends. You don't need to sit here and watch me. I'm the grown-up here, remember?"

"I'm the witch here, remember?"

Shane laughs and she's amazed at how lightly he's taking all of this. "How could I forget?"

"I'm just going to stand here for awhile, okay?" Bonnie says. "To make sure no one bothers you."

Shane takes a sip of his drink. "If you insist."

He hums along the music and taps a foot on the floor. Bonnie leans against the wall and folds her arms. She's got a dagger to seek out anyway, and she's not doing anything else. Fixing her stare on the space of floor at her feet, she concentrates.

The daggers themselves are magical. Magic to magic, power to power, Bonnie's will to what Bonnie wants. She floats through the massive foyer, packed with people. No dagger there. Through the guest bathrooms, the crowded kitchen, the opulent dining room. The room holding Klaus' coffins is locked up tight for the night but the only dagger there is the one resting in Rebekah's heart. Bonnie goes upstairs and searches the bedrooms. Nothing. Not a single dagger, not even the slightest flicker of their existence, not a hum of their nearness.

But if they're not here, then where are they?

"What are you doing?" Shane asks. His voice jerks her back to his side where he's staring at her with an arched eyebrow and an amused smile.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you doing magic?"

"No."

"Yes you are," he says, his smile widening. "What are you doing?"

He's so excited that Bonnie almost wants to laugh.

"Don't worry about it," Bonnie says.

At least now they know Klaus has upped his hiding game. The dagger they need isn't here.

* * *

Jeremy doesn't know where Bonnie went away to and he lost sight of Tyler awhile ago as the dance floor got a bit more crowded. For all he knows they're out here together somewhere or maybe Bonnie's looking for the dagger by now. He and Elena are dancing but they aren't speaking. He thought she might have wanted to say something when she came over, but she hasn't said it yet, whatever it is. And everything Jeremy wants to say to her would ruin everything.

"I'm glad you came," Elena says finally.

"Yeah, me too," Jeremy says.

"I've been wanting to talk to you," she goes on, "about the other night."

_So do hunters_.

The weight of Jeremy's ring seems especially heavy tonight.

"What about it?" Jeremy asks.

"I didn't know what Elijah was doing."

"You said that."

"I wanted to make sure you believed me," Elena says. "I _didn't _know. I'd never let him do that. I talked to him about it. If we're growing your Mark we're going to do it differently, and he won't try that again. We'll figure something else out."

"I've got a pretty good system with Bonnie and Tyler," Jeremy says. "We went again a couple days ago. It's going fine."

Well, not _fine_. The Mark is growing but each dead vampire seems to contribute less and less.

"I'm glad," Elena says. "You guys work well together I guess."

_What does _that_ mean? _He just wants to know. He's tired of not knowing. If they're enemies now, it'd be nice to know that so he can stop trying to be civil. And it'd be nice to know so he can grab the rest of his stuff from their house and let Bonnie know their couch arrangement might be a little more permanent than any of them had anticipated. He'd like to know so he can start gearing up to go to war with his sister. It's going to take some time.

"How are you and Bonnie doing?" Elena asks. "Good?"

"Yeah," Jeremy says. "We're fine."

He wonders what Elena thought when she saw them all at the bar. Is that why she's asking? Because she thinks their twosome has become a threesome? Because their twosome might have actually become a threesome?

"I always thought you guys were good together," she adds. "She's good for you. You're good for her."

_What does that mean?_

The song ends.

"Thanks for the dance," Elena says, stepping away from him. "I'll let you get back to Bonnie."

"Elena," Jeremy says before she can go. "One more."

The smile she gives him looks incredibly genuine, but as he takes her hand again he sees his ring. It's big and magical and weighty. If she killed him, he'd just get back up. He thinks of Uncle John. Katherine cut his finger off to rid him of his ring.

Elena rests her head against his chest and he pictures Elena with a bloodied knife in hand. It's not John but Jeremy whose finger lies detached and pitiful looking, with that giant ring still on it. He sees himself dying. That death will stick.

What was it that Tyler said?

_Rings can come off._

* * *

Tyler stands along the wall with a glass of what is certainly not anything alcoholic, but especially not a scotch. His dad used to drink scotch. Jeremy and Elena are dancing, Bonnie's near the bar with Shane. Tyler's eyes flit back and forth between the two of them, keeping them both in sight. Bonnie's probably fine, but Jeremy's with Elena, and Tyler has decided he'd rather they all kept their distance from her until they figure her out.

"Hey," Caroline says as she comes to stand next to him in a strapless dress a pale lilac color. Tyler glances over her shoulder looking for any sign of Klaus. He'd expect him to make an appearance right about now.

"Hey."

"Having fun?"

"Not really," Tyler says.

"Yeah, me either," Caroline says. She looks to their right, to the old black and white photo of the boarding house, back when it was in its prime. "It was a pretty house, huh?"

_Not really_, Tyler thinks. "Sure."

"I can't believe they're gone," she says. "It doesn't seem real."

Tyler would agree with that at least. A Salvatore-free existence has never seemed possible until now, when they're living it.

"Have you seen Matt?" Caroline asks.

"Not yet," Tyler answers.

Maybe Caroline senses he's not in a very talkative mood. "I'm gonna go find him."

Caroline goes. It's not long before the space she vacated is filled. By Elijah whose suit may be slightly more formal than usual tonight but Tyler can't pinpoint how. For a moment, the Original doesn't speak, and Tyler's not about to initiate conversation. They stand side-by-side and Tyler does his best not to look in Elijah's direction. Instead he focuses on Jeremy and Elena, still dancing, and then Bonnie with Shane. His eyes linger there.

"Are you here together?"

Tyler's beginning to wonder which Original brother annoys him more. At least Klaus is busy pretending to be decent at the moment. Or perhaps he's chasing Caroline around the room, Tyler doesn't know.

"What?" Tyler asks.

"Are you here together?" Elijah repeats. "You and Bonnie?"

"No."

"Are all three of you here together?"

"No."

Tyler sees Caroline as she discovers Matt and hugs him. Then she pulls him away for a dance.

"Pity," Elijah says. "I'm sure the night would end much more interestingly if you were."

"Is there a point you're trying to make?"

"Oh, I think I made it."

Tyler looks down at his empty glass. Time for a refill. He moves but Elijah reaches out and grips his wrist so tightly Tyler would bruise if that was possible. "Wait," he says.

"For?"

"Me to finish talking to you."

"Then finish."

"I was thinking of your mother," Elijah says, releasing Tyler's arm. "She took these events very seriously."

"She did," Tyler concedes. If his mom wasn't doing some organic farming or knitting or whatever it is his aunt likes to do in California, she'd be here managing this thing. She'd tell Tyler to work the room and try to convince his friends to give even a little to the cause. If she was here, Tyler would have shown up before Jeremy and Bonnie did to help her set up. She'd probably ask what's going on with him and Bonnie because he's been spending a lot of time with her lately and Tyler's never mentioned her before, but he should really share these kinds of things with his mother.

"When will she be returning to town?"

"Her vacation's indefinite," Tyler answers.

"Vacation," Elijah repeats. "I like to call it fleeing."

"Call it whatever you want."

"I hope she's chosen her vacation spot well," Elijah says. "It would be a shame if something terrible were to befall her. She'd never get to see her son graduate." He raises a hand as someone across the room catches his attention. "Excuse me, I must tend to guests."

Tyler tightens his grip on his glass. It shatters.


	8. Kill or Be Killed

Kill or Be Killed

Tyler finds Bonnie.

After he's shaken off the shards of glass that are clinging to his suit and digging into his palms, he finds her standing with Shane near the bar.

She smiles as she sees him coming. "Ready for that dance?" she asks. She must see something in his face because her smile fades, and she takes his hand to pull him into a secluded corner where they're tucked behind a shimmery gold curtain. Once they're behind it she realizes there's blood on the palm of his hand, where the cuts used to be. His other hand still grasps her purse, and he squeezes it so tightly he might tear it.

"What did you do?" she asks. "What happened?"

He can't breathe. If he needed to breathe, he wouldn't be able to. His whole body feels hot and his head is pounding. It takes all of him to keep his fangs in his mouth, and keep his eyes from going red.

"Tyler," Bonnie says, reaching to touch his face. "Tell me what's going on."

"They're going after my mom," he says. He has to repeat it. "They're going after my mom."

"Who is?"

"Elena and Elijah!"

Bonnie looks taken aback for a moment. "Why do you think that?"

"Elijah told me," Tyler says. "They're looking for her and they're going to find her and when they do they're going to kill her." It's hard to keep his voice down. The music will drown out most of their whispers from any supernaturals but he doesn't care if they all hear. He hopes they hear. "If they touch my mom, Bonnie," Tyler says, "I'll kill them both. I'll kill him and I'll kill her."

Bonnie's shaking her head and stroking his neck, waiting for him to give her a chance to speak, but he can't stop talking. He has to keep saying it. "If they touch her I'll do it, Bonnie. I know she's your friend and she's Jeremy's sister but if she hurts my mom, I'll kill her. I can't - I can't lose my mom."

He doesn't know if he's trying to convince Bonnie or himself.

"Tyler," she says. "Look at me."

He realizes he hasn't been looking at her, not directly. He's been looking at her necklace and her earlobe and the neckline of her dress but he hasn't been looking at her. When he does he wants to cry. His words are coming too fast. He's never felt this out of control before, not since he became a hybrid, not since the wolf was suppressed. He should have more control. He tries to find it again because Bonnie's looking at him and she's looking at him strangely, like she's never seen him before. This isn't the Tyler she's used to.

"What am I gonna do?" he says. "What are we gonna do? Bonnie, what are we gonna do?"

"Tyler," she says, more forcefully this time, "no one is going to hurt your mom. Okay? _No one_. The spell-"

"Ramona got through your other spell, the one on Stefan," Tyler reminds her. "What if she gets through this one? What if they find her?"

He might be able to get to California within a couple days, sooner if he starts driving and doesn't stop. He can go through the night. Hybrids don't need that much sleep. He'll get to his mom and hide her somewhere else. He'll stay with her this time, and protect her himself. If Elena or Elijah comes, he'll be there. He'll keep her safe or die trying.

"They won't," Bonnie assures him. "I'll reinforce the spell. I can make it even stronger. Besides, Lucy is finding Ramona right now. She's not gonna be a problem."

"What if they already found her?" Tyler asks. "What if she already broke the spell?"

"She didn't," Bonnie says.

"How do you know?"

"I would have felt it."

"What if Elijah finds another witch?" Tyler says. There are too many what-ifs, too many possibilities. "He knows witches, right?" He remembers the Martins, who appeared out of nowhere to do Elijah's bidding. Who knows what other witches Elijah would be able to find, and who knows if they'll be intimidated enough by the Bennett name to stay away? And Bonnie's fresh out of fancy bones to offer.

"The spell is holding," Bonnie says. "They don't know where she is, and they won't find out. Elijah won't have time to find another witch. We'll deal with him tonight if we have to. Tyler, I promise you that your mom is fine."

He hears her talking. He understands the logic, but he can't make himself believe in it. Even if they deal with Elijah tonight, they'll still have Elena to contend with tomorrow. And she'll be there the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. Elena is constant, even if Elijah isn't. His mom won't be safe.

"Tyler," Bonnie says. She closes the already small space between them and her fingers move to his chin, angling his face to hers. He sees the leaf green of her eyes, the delicate angle of her nose, her mouth as she speaks. "Trust me. The spell is holding. Your mom is okay."

"I do trust you," he says. "But I don't trust Elena. Why would she go after my mom? I'm right here. We all are. If she wants to hurt us, she can hurt _us._ My mom has nothing to do with this."

"She's not-"

"If anything happens to my mom...I meant what I said, Bonnie."

He can tell she wishes he hadn't said that. They've all been thinking it, thinking it may come to that, but now he doesn't think any of them truly considered it. It's them or Elena, kill or be killed. Tyler doesn't think he minds dying, not as much as he used to. His future is fuzzy enough as is, but he's not going to go down without a fight. He won't just sit there, and let Elena take aim at his mother.

Bonnie takes in a shaky breath but she nods. "I know. Let's just - It won't come to that, okay?"

_It better not_, he thinks.

"We have to get Jeremy," Bonnie says, taking his hand.

They haven't moved before the curtain is pulled aside and Jeremy is staring at them with round, questioning eyes. Tyler didn't even realize he was close. "What's going on?"

Bonnie pulls Jeremy inside with them. It's a little cramped in here but they make do.

"Elena and Elijah are going after my mom," Tyler explains. "I was telling Bonnie that if anything happens to her that I'll-"

"Whoa," Jeremy says, holding up a hand. He already knows what Tyler's about to say. "She's my sister."

"Your _sister_ is talking about killing my mom."

Jeremy looks to Bonnie in a silent plea for help. "Let's just take a minute," she says.

"We might not have a minute," Tyler insists.

"Elena wouldn't hurt your mom," Jeremy says. "And she definitely wouldn't kill her."

"Just like we wouldn't kill Stefan and Damon? Just like she wouldn't bring Elijah here and let him compel vampires to chase you through the fucking forest?"

Jeremy avoids meeting Tyler's eyes. Instead he focuses on Bonnie as if looking at her is going to change the fact that Elena and Elijah are playing a game the three of them are trying to avoid.

There's no way of knowing what any of them would or wouldn't do anymore.

"We killed Damon and Stefan," Tyler says. "You're her best friend and you're her brother and she still treats you like you're disposable but me? What am I to her? _Nothing_. My mom is nothing and I helped kill Damon and Stefan." Hell, it was his idea.

"We have to dagger Elijah tonight," Bonnie says.

"We shouldn't be talking about this here," Jeremy puts in.

"I did the spell already," Bonnie says. "No one can hear us. We dagger Elijah tonight."

"You know where the daggers are?" Tyler asks. He'd almost forgotten Bonnie had come with her own objective tonight.

"No."

Jeremy and Tyler exchange confused looks.

"There's one," Bonnie says, "but it's in Rebekah."

* * *

They break away from the party separately to disappear into Klaus' little funeral parlor. After talking to Shane again and getting him to leave, Bonnie goes. Jeremy doesn't know how she managed to convince the professor to leave this time, when he was so insistent on sticking around, but he left when Bonnie told him to. Tyler went after Bonnie. Now it's just Jeremy left out there, waiting for the opportunity to slip away stealthily. He's been told to wait at least two minutes before following after them.

In the meantime, he searches the room for Elena. At first he can't find her and he panics, thinking she may be off with Elijah somewhere planning to move in on Mrs. Lockwood now that Elijah's let that particular shoe drop. He relaxes when he finds her standing with Caroline and Matt. Jeremy has no idea what they're talking about but they share some muted smiles.

_Please don't hurt Tyler's mom_, he thinks, like Elena can hear him.

They've known Tyler for their entire lives. All the Lockwoods. Elena's never been a killer, but Jeremy reminds himself that no one would have ever called him one either. Now he's got a tattoo growing across his body that says differently. But those were vampires, predators who preyed on the weak and the fragile. Carol Lockwood isn't a vampire and she's certainly not a predator. She's Tyler's mom. How could Elena hurt Tyler's mom?

He remembers Tyler back there, threatening to kill her. Even if Jeremy didn't let him get so far as to actually say the words, he knew what Tyler meant. They've already proven themselves to be capable killers. If it comes down to his mom, Tyler would prove it again.

Jeremy doesn't know what Bonnie will do. He doesn't even know what he'll do. Stop Tyler? Help Tyler? Leave town altogether and try not to care either way? He doesn't want to have to decide.

_Please don't hurt Tyler's mom_.

Elena laughs at something Caroline's said. Matt smiles just barely and shakes his head. In response Caroline says something else to him, and she squeezes his arm for emphasis. They seem like they're thousands of miles away, occupying a space that Bonnie, Tyler and Jeremy no longer have access to. Or maybe it's the three of them in a new place where they've willingly siphoned themselves off from the group.

Caroline and Matt won't stand for it, will they? Not killing Tyler's mom at least. If Caroline and Elena want revenge that's one thing, but targeting Mrs. Lockwood is another. They won't let that happen. It _won't_ happen. But if Caroline and Matt don't know then how won't it? Once it's done there's no going back. Tyler's mom will be dead.

That's why they have to come clean tonight. If Caroline and Matt can reign Elena in, even a little, maybe they won't have to go down that road. Tyler's mom will be just fine in California, and Tyler won't feel compelled to kill Elena. No one has to die. They had three targets. Damon, Stefan, and Klaus. Elena was never supposed to make the list. Jeremy just hopes she doesn't insist on putting herself on it.

If she does succeed in going after Tyler's mom, then what'll happen. Who comes next? Bonnie's dad? There's no one Elena can hurt to get to Jeremy. There's just Jeremy.

He touches the side of his neck where fangs tore through the skin.

More than two minutes have passed.

"Finally," Tyler says when Jeremy joins them. They're standing at Rebekah's coffin with the lid already up. Bonnie doesn't say anything. She's staring at Rebekah, determined.

Jeremy looks down at Rebekah, too. For all intents and purposes, she's dead. It would be easy to leave her that way. Who knows what kind of hell she'll unleash once she's up and about?

"This is going to come back to bite us," Jeremy says. They might literally be bitten. "You know that, right?"

"Feel free to share the better idea you don't have," Tyler says, sounding annoyed. Then more gently, he adds, "If we want to do this tonight then this is how we do it. I'm not thrilled about it either."

No, none of them are thrilled. Not that they have to wake up Rebekah to put her brother into a miserable, daggered sleep. Not that they had a moment where they discussed killing Elena. None of them are thrilled.

"Who wants to do the honors?" Bonnie asks.

Jeremy shrugs his shoulders and pulls the dagger free.

"Now what?" Tyler questions, raising his eyes to theirs.

"I get Elijah in here," Bonnie answers, taking the dagger from Jeremy and sliding it up the sleeve of her dress. "You two wait for me. Afterward we'll talk to the others and we tell them everything."

"Are we sure we want to do that?" Tyler asks.

"Feel free to share the better idea you don't have," Jeremy snaps which earns him an exasperated look from Tyler.

"There isn't one," Bonnie says. "Once Elijah's gone, Elena will know we did it. She'll just find another way to do whatever it is she's doing. We need to get everything on the table _tonight. _We might be able to make her drop this somehow."

Somehow.

Their options seem very limited.

"You guys go," Bonnie says as she closes the coffin and Rebekah face disappears behind the polished wood.

* * *

Elijah may be a lot of things but punctual isn't one of them. Isn't that supposed to his thing though? Aren't the endlessly honorable supposed to value the time of others? She sought out his mind as soon as Tyler and Jeremy left, and she caught hold. She told him to come meet her and she knows he will, but it looks like he's going to make her wait.

It's been ten minutes when he arrives. "Interesting choice of venue," Elijah says. His gaze floats over the coffins, including the one meant for him. "Why here?"

"It's quiet," Bonnie says, "and I was looking for a dagger." She stands nearest the window, her sleeve that hides the dagger pressed to her side.

"Oh? For what purpose?"

"Daggering you," Bonnie says honestly. "I can't find one. I guess Klaus decided to hide them."

"No," Elijah says. "_I_ hid them."

Of course he did.

"Between my brother and certain _other_ threats," Elijah says, "it's better to hide the sharp objects." He lingers by Rebekah's coffin. If he opens it, he'll see that the dagger is missing. Bonnie flips through her mental catalogue of spells,and lands on an illusion. She crafts the image of the shining dagger sitting comfortably in Rebekah's chest right before Elijah lifts the lid.

He stares down at his sister with an expression that may be sympathy. Without speaking he reaches to touch the dagger's hilt. His long fingers wrap around it as if to test the truth of its existence.

"Don't forget," Bonnie says, "about your _deal_ with Elena. Rebekah stays in that box."

Elijah releases the dagger. "I never forget," he says as he lowers the lid again. He turns to face Bonnie and he cocks his head to the side. "Let us speak candidly. We're the only ones here."

Bonnie shrugs her shoulders. "Okay. You first."

Elijah takes a step toward her. "You killed the Salvatore brothers."

"Yes," Bonnie says as she moves further away from him. He smiles at her step. Maybe he thinks she's afraid of him, but she's not. That's the problem with Originals. They think they're something special because they were the first vampires, but they forget who created them.

"Why?" Elijah asks curiously.

"They had it coming."

_Just like you do._

"How long has Elena known?" Bonnie asks.

"A while," Elijah responds. "For a few weeks now. She was informed exactly one week after Stefan's demise. How long have you known that she knows?"

"Long enough," Bonnie says. "Why did Elena bring you here?"

"To provide protection," Elijah answers.

She presses her lips together into a firm line. "Why did she _really_ bring you here?"

"You take me for a liar?"

"Yes."

"I'm not the only one," he says. "I've been far more truthful than you've been of late. I was skeptical when Elena told me what you'd done. How could you the young, sacrificial Bonnie Bennett commit cold-blooded murder?" _  
_

There was that word again. Murder. Stefan called it the same thing.

"Like I said, they had it coming."

Elijah sits down in one of the chairs and crosses one leg over the other. He isn't concerned with her, not in the slightest. Not even after that night in the woods, where she could have broken him into pieces, and ground his bones into a fine powder. He doesn't think she has it in her to kill him. Because of his line perhaps, those nameless, faceless vampires who can name him as their sire. Maybe because he doesn't think her magic is strong enough. She killed Stefan and Damon, who were supposed to be her allies in this war that has become their lives. Why _wouldn't_ she kill Elijah?

"You've changed," he says.

Bonnie narrows her eyes. "How would you know? You've never known me."

"The witch I met would have sooner died than see a friend in pain," Elijah says as he steeples his fingers. "That witch was willing to die to kill Klaus and protect Elena. Look at her now. Murdering the two people most dear to Elena's heart with no consideration of the pain you'd cause her."

"Elena can take care of herself," Bonnie says. "She brought you here didn't she? A good choice on her part."

Elijah smirks. "I am biased but I can't help but to agree."

"You'll kill us for her."

"If the situation calls for it," Elijah says. He's up from the chair in a flash, standing as close to Bonnie as he can manage without actually touching her. He's tall, incredibly tall, and she has to lift her chin to stare into his eyes. They are cold brown pools. They aren't big and innocent like Elena's or sweet like Jeremy's. Elijah's stare is brutal and savage. She can almost see in them all the lives he's shattered. One of those lives being Abby's. "Does the situation call for it?" he asks.

The dagger has grown warm against her arm.

"You tell me."

Elijah's stare remains hard even as he takes a step away from her.

"Answer my question," Bonnie says.

Elijah examines her closely. The dagger is turned to the back of her arm. He won't be able to see it from this angle. He'd have to move, and when he starts to revolve around her, Bonnie circles as well to keep them face-to-face.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Looking," Elijah says.

"For?"

He doesn't answer.

"Stop."

Surprisingly, he does.

"There's a party going on," he says. "I should return. Allow me to escort you back to the festivities?"

"No."

Elijah nods curtly. "Very well." He turns and walks back to the door.

"Elijah," Bonnie says, reaching for her sleeve. Her fingers close around the dagger's hilt and she pulls it free. A magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. "We're not done."

Elijah turns to see the shining glimmer of the steel. His face ripples as his eyes go red and his mouth opens in a snarl. He becomes a blur as he crosses the room but he doesn't get to her. Not before her magic folds along his spine and crushes it. The sound of his cracking bones are drowned out by his screams. They're loud but the spell on the room will keep anyone from coming to his aid. Bonnie breaks his spine again as she kneels at his side.

He fixes his stare on the dagger and keeps his eyes open despite the pain. "I never forget, witch," he snarls. "I'll be awoken eventually."

The dagger is lighter than she expected it to be. Its weight gives her energy. As her heart pounds Bonnie realizes it's with anticipation.

"Eventually," she concedes. "Then we'll be right back here. I don't forget either, Elijah."

Elijah doesn't make a sound as Bonnie slides the point of the dagger into his heart.

She allows herself the pleasure of watching him go all gray and pathetic looking. A noble vampire turned to a dusty hued statue. She wishes Jeremy and Tyler were there to see it, too.

Bonnie levitates Elijah into his coffin and closes the lid without a second glance. Next she whispers out a spell to seal it shut. The coffin will probably be opened eventually just as Bonnie and Abby opened Esther's, but that eventually will be forever from now. Or at least she hopes it will be. Bonnie goes to Rebekah's and lifts the lid. She's not awake yet, and there's still some time left before she is.

Bonnie looks down at her with her full lips and blond hair that looks glossy even while she's daggered. In another universe Rebekah might be the victim here. In that same universe, removing the dagger may have been done with the intention of saving Rebekah and offering her some the justice she deserves. In this universe - in reality - she is simply the lesser of two evils.

"You're gonna make me regret this," Bonnie says before she pushes the lid back down.

Next on the agenda is Klaus. She summons him as she did his brother. He's far more eager to see what she wants.

"Witch," he says as he strolls into the room, looking both intrigued and annoyed. Without Tyler around he's not nearly as friendly.

"Elijah hid your daggers," Bonnie says, "but I'm sure you already know that. Because of that I had to remove Rebekah's in order to deal with Elijah. He's in that coffin there." She points.

Klaus stares at her. She sees a flash of rage and she prepares herself to flatten his spine, too, but he doesn't make a move. His gaze goes from one coffin to another, and his face clears. With a quiet hum, he takes a step toward her. "And what did my brother do to deserve this fate?"

"He threatened Tyler's mother," Bonnie answers. "I know that's right up your alley, but I won't stand for it. Besides, I've done you a favor."

"You think so?"

"Elijah was here to find the cure," she says, "and I doubt he wanted it for himself. He would have used it on you."

"My brother," Klaus says. "How _unoriginal_."

"With him in that coffin you have nothing to worry about," Bonnie says. "You're welcome."

"Are you expecting a thank you?"

"I don't expect anything from you, Klaus," Bonnie says tiredly. "Rebekah will be awake soon unless you find where Elijah hid your daggers. Then you can keep her in that box the way you like her." She hopes he does.

"Or I could remove the dagger from my brother," Klaus says, "and let him roam freely while I dagger Rebekah again. Elijah can't reach the cure without you and Jeremy. At least one of you is easily killed. Curse or no curse, I could find someone to do that for me."

"I've sealed Elijah's coffin shut," Bonnie says. "You won't be able to open it until _I _open it. And if you touch Jeremy - or Tyler - not only will I never open that coffin, but I will find that cure and feed it to you myself. Then I _will_ kill you."

"That's not your plan already?"

"So paranoid," Bonnie sighs. Though not entirely without cause. "I plan on making Elena human again. Her and my mom. Then you can do whatever you want with the cure. Even destroy it."

Klaus smiles and she knows she has him. "Then we both win."

"That's the idea," Bonnie says. "Elena gets a human life, you get more hybrids, and my mom gets to be a witch again. It's a win/win/win."

Bonnie's not banking on Abby making herself known to request the cure for herself, but if it'll convince Klaus, then she'll use it.

"I guess Elijah wasn't as useful as Elena hoped he'd be," Klaus says.

Bonnie looks at him for a moment, trying to gauge what he meant by that.

"Was he not helpful?" Klaus adds.

Bonnie's becoming just as paranoid as Klaus is. She grabs her bag from on top of one of the other coffins, and wonders which Original spent centuries in that one. "Goodnight, Klaus, and thank you for the invitation. It was fun." She's going out the door when he speaks.

"It's a shame," he says, slipping his hands into his pockets, "that we never got around to that dance. Next time?"

She blinks at him and remembers she never got to dance with Tyler. She wishes she could remedy that. Klaus is still looking at her, waiting for her response.

"No."

* * *

Tyler waits outside with Jeremy. They're standing in the horseshoe driveway in silence. Tyler thought about saying something to him, something along the lines of "sorry for threatening to kill your sister" but he can't figure out more sympathetic words. If Jeremy wants to say anything to him, he's not coming up with anything.

"Jeremy," Tyler says finally. "I'm sorry about before."

Jeremy mumbles something in response.

"What?"

"I know," Jeremy repeats, not looking at Tyler. "It's fine."

"I wasn't gonna do it," Tyler goes on. "Not unless-" _I really had to. _

"Tyler." Jeremy finally turns to him. "I know. I get it."

It seems like they might be having a fight. Tyler wants to figure out something else to say, something to break the tension, but he comes up blank. Luckily Bonnie appears and does it for him. She's pulling on her jacket when she reaches them. "It's done," she says. "Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus."

"So we're done here," Jeremy says.

"Yeah, we're done _here_," Tyler says. But they have more to do away from here.

"I'll talk to Caroline," Tyler says. He doesn't want to tell Matt, though he will probably take it better than Caroline will. It wasn't Matt who was best friends with Stefan, but it will feel wrong somehow, making Bonnie tell Caroline.

"Do you want to talk to Elena?" Bonnie asks Jeremy. "I can go with Matt."

Jeremy shakes his head. "No, I'll talk to Matt. I don't know what I'd say to Elena anyway."

"You say that like I know," Bonnie says but she smiles weakly. She wraps her arms around herself and glances back at the house. The party's still in full swing even though it feels like it ended the moment they undaggered Rebekah. Inside Elena, Caroline, and Matt are still partying and fund raising and doing whatever else there is to do in there. "I'll go to Elena's and wait for her there," Bonnie says. "See you at home?"

Tyler and Jeremy nod in unison.

"Good luck," Bonnie says. Will luck help them here? Probably not.

"You, too," Tyler says anyway. "Be careful. If you need us..."

She smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. This already long night has gotten a lot longer, and they all know it. "I'll be okay."

Tyler's never seen her disappear before. When she does, it's as fast as blinking. One second she's there and the next she's not.

Jeremy looks to Tyler. "Should we go back in?"

"I'm not," Tyler says. "I'm just gonna wait in the car for Caroline to come out. Wanna come?"

For a second he thinks Jeremy might say no. Maybe he'd rather be in that stifling party trying to raise money to make the presence of the Salvatores a permanent one in town, but then he shrugs his shoulders. "Yeah, why not?"

It's a little over an hour later when Caroline comes out.

The party's going to go late, but she's not staying. Tyler sees her coming through the front doors, poking and prodding at her hair while she fumbles with her phone. Jeremy gets out of the car and goes to find Matt. If Caroline's leaving then Elena's leaving. If Elena and Caroline are leaving, then Matt is leaving.

"Caroline," Tyler says, approaching. He's surprised by how nervous he is now.

"Hey," she says, smiling. "I thought you guys left awhile ago."

"Bonnie did," he says. "Can we talk?"

She looks surprised. Maybe she thinks he wants to talk to her about them being friends again, maybe about the Bonnie thing. He'd rather talk to her about any of those things actually. "Matt was going to drive me home," she says.

"I can drive you," Tyler offers.

"What about Jeremy?"

"Matt can drive him," he says. "Please, Caroline? It's important."

Caroline hesitates but she finally nods her head. "Okay, let's go."

Tyler leads her to his car. She asks him if he enjoyed himself anymore after their last conversation. He says he didn't. When she says it wasn't so bad near the end, he feels bad.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, where he's about to ruin Caroline's entire night.

* * *

"Jeremy, what are you doing?" Matt asks, sounding amused as he reaches his truck where Jeremy is leaning against the hood. He fishes in his pocket for his keys.

"Can I get a ride?" Jeremy asks.

"Where's Tyler?"

"He's giving Caroline a ride," he explains.

"Well, I was headed to the Grill," Matt says. "I have to check something for Jim but I can drop you off after if you don't mind."

Sometimes Jeremy forgets Matt's only an employee at the Grill. He works there so much, even more than the owner does.

"No, that's perfect," Jeremy says. Maybe Matt will want to drink something alcoholic when Jeremy tells him the truth.

* * *

Transporting herself to Elena's house is difficult though Bonnie's not sure why. At least not at first. Once shes inside it's easy to find her way to a few packets of herbs. They are hidden throughout. Behind the line of photos in the living room, in the kitchen cupboard, underneath the bathroom sink, in a vase of flowers in the hallway. She gathers up the ones she finds and burns them in the kitchen. She dumps the ashes down the drain.

First Elena revoked Tyler's invitation then she tried to block Bonnie's magic. There's no way to keep Jeremy weak inside the house. He can come and go as he pleases. There's only way to make sure Jeremy doesn't come in. Corpses don't get to walk freely through houses. That night in the forest keeps taking on new meaning, but Bonnie wishes she knew which one was the right one.

Bonnie waits in Elena's room. She stares at the same framed photo Elena gave Bonnie for her birthday. It sits between a picture of Elena with her parents and a skinny Jeremy and another of Elena and Stefan. His lips are pressed to her cheek and Elena stares at the camera with a sweet smile. She didn't have the chance to take a picture with Damon, but if she had, one would be here as well.

Bonnie sits at the edge of Elena's bed, where she's sat so many times before. Then she moves because she feels like she shouldn't be sitting there, being the killer of Damon and Stefan and all. Instead she sits at Elena's desk.

Bonnie hears when Elena's car pulls up in front of the house. She listens as Elena comes in and starts up the stairs. Except for her, there's not a sound in the house. It's lonely somehow, that this is Elena's home every night. No parents. No Jenna. No Alaric. No Jeremy. Just Elena and this house. She comes into her room, pausing when she sees the light is on. She steps warily inside, not looking at all relieved to see that it's Bonnie sitting there.

"Bonnie," Elena says, lingering at the door. "What are you doing here?"

Bonnie inhales. She wonders if Tyler and Jeremy are as nervous as she is. _Moment of truth. _"We need to talk."

* * *

**I do know that they're supposed to use white oak ash with the daggers but I decided to ignore that in the context of this fic because I'm not even sure if the show remembers they need white oak ash and I was writing this and I was just smh'ing because whatever. Anyway, thank you for reading and reviewing! Next chapter everyone's coming clean!**

**Fun fact: This chapter was written to John Murphy's "In the House - In a Heartbeat".**


	9. Falling Out

**This is the longest chapter yet at 6k+. I considered splitting it but it would have happened right in the middle and you would have missed out on Matt and Caroline (and that would be sad) so have an extra lengthy chapter. We'll return to our typical length next time (I think). Thanks for reading and your reviews are very appreciated!**

* * *

Falling Out

"We need to talk."

All the air has been sucked from the room and it's even quieter than it was a few seconds ago. All Bonnie can hear is her own breathing and the rustle of her dress as she shifts in her seat. She wishes she'd been able to change clothes first. Considering the circumstances, she feels ridiculous in this dress. She just wants to wipe off all her makeup, kick off her shoes, and go to sleep in her bed. Anything but this.

Elena tosses her purse down on her bed but doesn't step away from the door. She keeps her back straight. "Okay," she says. "What about?"

"I daggered Elijah."

Elena's face is a mask. Impenetrable and unreadable. Judging from her expression Bonnie could have told her that she bought a new pair of shoes. No, that would probably elicit more emotion than this. "Why?" Elena asks, her voice cold.

"You know why," Bonnie says, equally detached. Elena's not the only one who can do the mechanical thing.

"You killed Damon and Stefan."

Bonnie sees them like it was just yesterday. Damon is hallucinating in the tomb, and Stefan is tied to the chair in front of the fireplace. Damon slips in and out of lucidity, and Stefan broils with rage, knowing exactly what they did.

"Yes," Bonnie says.

"With Tyler and Jeremy."

"Yes."

Elena opens her mouth to say something else but Bonnie cuts her off. "Why did you bring Elijah here?"

Elena's eyebrows knit together and she stands up even straighter, if that's even possible. It's like she's bracing herself to give her answer. Bonnie is, too. At least she'll know the truth now.

"It was something Jeremy said," Elena explains. "I remember his exact words. He said, 'Bonnie alone is a pretty big deal, right? And there's me. I know you think I'm still a kid, but I'm a hunter. That means something. Tyler's a hybrid, and you and Caroline are vampires. Okay, so Matt's human but we can take care of him.'" She sounds robotic as she recites them. They've been committed to memory as if Elena's repeated them to herself many times. "We would lose against you," she adds.

"Lose?" Bonnie questions. "Lose what?"

"In a fight."

"Who's fighting?" Bonnie asks. "It's not a war, Elena." Not between them at least. For so long they've had a common enemy. First it was the tomb vampires then Katherine then Klaus.

Elena lets out a noise. It's a cross between a laugh and a sigh. "You _killed_ Stefan and Damon. That's one hell of a declaration."

"We weren't declaring anything," Bonnie says wearily. Stefan and Damon had titles and responsibilities. They were Elena's...whatever they were. Boyfriends? Lovers? Friends? Protectors? Their only purpose was to love her, obsess over her, and kill for her. And sometimes for each other. There's no one to do that now. The recent balance of Mystic Falls has been destroyed.

"You were trying to say _something_."

"So were you. Why did you bring Elijah here?" Bonnie asks again. "So you would win? How exactly did you plan on doing that? Sending a horde of vampires after Jeremy? Going after Tyler's mom? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _you?_"

Elena pushes herself off the wall and Bonnie rises from the chair instinctively to meet her, but Elena doesn't come close to her. She pauses suddenly, and tilts her head, narrowing her eyes in disbelief. But there's daring there, too. If there was ever an expression that could perfectly encapsulate Stefan and Damon both, Elena has managed it. "Are you going to use your magic on me, Bonnie?"

_I don't want to. _"I found your herbs," Bonnie tells her, "so I will if you make me."

Elena makes a sound in her throat, a hiss of indignation. "You killed two people that I-" She breaks off and sucks in a breath she doesn't need to take -"that I _loved. _And you're threatened by _me_?"

"You sent vampires after your own brother."

"No," Elena says, taking another step. Her room has never been small in Bonnie's opinion, but now it seems miniature. A few steps will put them right in each other's faces. A few steps will mean something physical, and even though it will be easy to drop Elena with an aneurysm, Bonnie doesn't want to do it. She's never had to, and she never thought she would. She decides she'll make a barrier instead, a wall of energy that'll do the same job with no pain - no pain for either of them.

"I didn't," Elena continues. "Elijah did. Jeremy's my _brother, _Bonnie. I love him! Even though he..." Her voice cracks and she looks down at her fingers, where the daylight ring Bonnie made for her seems to have grown in size. Or maybe Bonnie's just hyper aware of its presence right now. Elena might be looking at it as well because she covers it with her other hand and hides it from view. "He's a Hunter now. He couldn't control it."

"Whatever makes you feel better, Elena," Bonnie says. This is going to be the general consensus it appears. Jeremy's Mark made him do it. Well, at least one of them will have an excuse should they choose to feel badly about this later. "What about Tyler's mom?"

The way Elena's gaze tries to avoid Bonnie's tells her all she needs to know. It's Bonnie's turn to take a step forward and Elena's to backtrack. This push and pull - the two of them both wanting and fearing to be right next to each other - can go on all night. Somewhere along the way Elena must realize what she's doing, that she's moving away, and it must bother her for some reason because she stops to let Bonnie get slightly closer than they were before. She's near enough to make out the muted glimmer of Elena's eye shadow, visible even in the dim light. There's still some lip gloss on Elena's mouth. She lifts her chin defiantly.

Bonnie tries to see her. She really, really does. She tries to find the girl in that picture on the nightstand, the one with the high, bouncing ponytail and easy smile. But she can't see her.

"Who _are_ you?" Bonnie asks.

Elena's eyes go dark. The veins that sprout beneath her eyes come and go so quickly Bonnie almost believes she imagined them. When Elena's eyes find hers they are brown again. But they are still enraged.

"Who am _I_?" Elena demands. She smacks her hand to her chest and her manicured nails dig so far into the skin that Bonnie can see small indentations that give way to blood. "Who are _you_? The Bonnie I knew - the Bonnie I've known forever - wouldn't have killed _anyone. S_he wouldn't have killed Stefan and Damon."

"The Bonnie you knew would have because she did," Bonnie says. "And she would again."

Welcome to Mystic Falls, there are no regrets.

* * *

"Do you want to come in?" Caroline asks when Tyler pulls to a stop in front of her house. The porch light is on but he already knows Sheriff Forbes isn't inside. He can't hear anything except the rattle of the heater and the hum of kitchen appliances. They'd be alone to talk. Caroline looks at him hopefully, awaiting an answer.

"Okay," Tyler says eventually.

He follows Caroline into the empty house where she asks him if he wants anything to drink. Soda? Water? Blood?

"I'm fine," he says. "Maybe we should sit down."

"We can go to my room."

He's about to protest because going to her room seems like a really bad idea. How exactly is he going to tell her he killed her hero Stefan Salvatore when they're sitting among Caroline's random cheerleader paraphernalia and other Caroline type things? How is he going to tell her he did that but he doesn't feel bad about it? That he was willing to lie to her for all this time? That he'd still be lying if not for things out of his control that happened tonight? But Caroline's already headed that way, and he has no choice but to follow her. She sits at her vanity in the corner to take off her jewelry and drop it into her jewelry box.

There are pictures stuck in the sides of the mirror. Caroline, Bonnie and Elena in their cheerleading uniforms; Caroline and Bonnie a couple Halloweens ago; and Caroline being crowned Miss Mystic Falls. There used to be one of the two of them up there, from one of the decade dances but it's been taken down.

"So," she says, looking at him in the mirror, "what did you want to talk about?"

Tyler stands beside her bed, unwilling to sit down, but really wishing he could. He doesn't know where to put his hands, but he finally settles on putting them in his pockets.

"Me and Bonnie and Jeremy," he begins. His throat feels dry and he doesn't know what words he wants to use. There's no way to make it sound better. He wishes he could have a long preamble, explaining the way he felt after Hayley died. If he could do the why first, he would. And he could. But he really can't. The ending will make anything prior unimportant. He stares at Caroline's floor, at a spot where the carpet is slightly darker than the rest. "Me and Bonnie and Jeremy..."

_Look at her when you say it_. It's not fair not to look at her. She was his girlfriend and he loved her. He can't _not_ look at her.

Caroline's paused her movement. She's still holding her delicate earrings in between her fingers. "You and Bonnie and Jeremy..." she prompts. When he still doesn't say anything, she laughs a little, and spins around to look at him. She might be expecting some kind of story, something humorous and benign. "What did you guys do?"

Tyler pictures Bonnie and Jeremy with Elena and Matt. They're doing this, too. He's not the only one uncomfortable. They're in this together, even if they're apart. If they can do it, Tyler can do it.

"We killed Damon and Stefan."

* * *

Jeremy sits at the bar while Matt's in the back room. He's on the phone with Jim, telling him something about inventory, and a shipment that didn't make it. Jeremy tries to imagine what that's like. One minute you're thinking about a shipment of meat or cheese or ketchup or whatever and the next you're friend is telling you they killed Damon and Stefan Salvatore. Matt wasn't close with either of them. His tolerance of them was purely for Elena's sake, but that might be enough. It's been enough before.

Jeremy pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe if he mentioned Vicki Matt would understand? She was his sister after all. If Damon hadn't turned her, if Stefan hadn't staked her, she'd still be here. Maybe Matt didn't feel the need to turn to bloodshed, but he'd understand. He didn't love Damon or Stefan like Elena did. He wasn't friends with them like Caroline. If there's one of them who will take it somewhat well, it's Matt. He's been on the same level as the rest of them. He was powerless like Jeremy was, easily compelled. They were both defenseless if a reeling Damon decided to take out his anger on them.

Matt may get it.

"Okay," he says when he comes back out. "We can go."

"Actually," Jeremy says, "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Is this about Bonnie and Tyler?" Matt squints at Jeremy as he sits on the bar stool beside him.

"...No," Jeremy says, raising an eyebrow. "What about them?"

Matt shrugs. "I just thought you might be having a weird thing."

"You know he likes her," Jeremy realizes.

Matt smiles sheepishly and drums his fingers on the counter top. "Yeah. I heard him and Caroline arguing about it."

Jeremy scratches at a place above his eye. "Well. That's not what I wanted to talk about." He doesn't know how he'd explain that particular situation either, but it might be preferable to explaining this one. Matt might find the story of the kissing and dancing more amusing at least. At least he can be sure that news won't make Matt storm out.

"Obviously," Matt says. "So what do you want to talk about? Elena?"

He's getting warmer.

"The three of us," Jeremy says, seeing Bonnie and Tyler in his head. Bonnie's getting to the bottom of this thing with Elena,and Tyler's with Caroline breaking her heart. They all might be cutting ties tonight. "Bonnie, Tyler and me." He sighs heavily. _Rip the band-aid off, _he thinks.

"We killed Damon and Stefan."

* * *

Elena is twisting the daylight ring. Around and around and around. It's the only thing she could think of to do with her hands apparently. They have that in common. Bonnie's hand has dropped to her wrist to feel for her bracelet. The silver is warm and the feel of the carved words is comforting in this room that feels tiny and suffocating.

Elena shakes her head from side to side and shifts her weight from foot to foot. She's looking for something to say. Bonnie's fine with waiting. She doesn't know what to say either. She feels her phone buzz in her bag and she pulls it out to glance at the screen. A text from Lucy. _Found Ramona. She's leaving._

Tyler will be relieved. Bonnie is, too. She returns her phone to her bag and looks up at Elena again who is standing totally still and staring at her.

"Who was that?" Elena asks. "Was it Tyler? Jeremy?"

"Neither," Bonnie says. "It was my cousin. She found Ramona. She won't be helping you anymore."

Elena's eyes widen. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," Bonnie assures her. "I paid her."

Elena wrings her hands and goes back to her shifting. If she's freaking out because Elijah and Ramona are both gone, she's hiding it well. If this somehow messes her up, if there is something to mess up, she's good at pretending. Finally she says, "Why did you kill them?"

That's the obvious question, isn't it? Bonnie believes it has an equally obvious answer, but if it was obvious they wouldn't be here right now. If it was obvious Elena and Caroline would have known as soon as Bonnie decided to embark on this mission. They would have helped her if it was obvious.

"Can you really not see why?" Bonnie says.

"No, Bonnie, I can't! Explain it to me!"

"I shouldn't have to!" Bonnie counters. "You were there for all of it. You were there when Damon tried to kill me and when my Grams died. Maybe you weren't _there_ when they flipped that coin to decide if it would be me or my mom they killed but you were there after. You were there every time Damon said _anything _to me, and every time Stefan spewed his own crap. It's obvious, Elena."

Elena falls silent. And those are just Bonnie's reasons. Tyler and Jeremy have their own.

"Try to defend them, Elena," Bonnie says. "I want to hear what you come up with to make it sound better. I'll tell you what Stefan said when we talked to him. He said it was for you. Everything was for you. I was disposable. So were Jeremy and Tyler. We didn't matter."

She doesn't say anything but she holds Bonnie's gaze anyway. Maybe it's pride that keeps them both from looking away.

"I should have killed them a long time ago," she adds.

"Then why didn't you?" Elena hisses. She's not vamping out again but she might. If she does again, she might not be as quick to suppress it. "It's been over a year! You were perfectly fine with them for this long. What happened to make you wake up one morning and decide that you would kill them?"

"Everyone has a limit."

"What was yours?"

"I didn't reach one," Bonnie answers. "Tyler did."

"It was his idea?"

"He brought it up first," Bonnie concedes, "after Damon killed Hayley. But I wanted to do it. When Tyler asked me to help him it made perfect sense, but I still hesitated because of you and Caroline."

She remembers that afternoon on Whitmore's campus where she left Shane's musty office to find Tyler waiting for her. He was so determined, so resolute in wanting them dead. She recalls his quiet grief, his infectious excitement, and his barely contained rage. She can't pinpoint the exact moment when his conviction molded with hers, but at some point it did. And then there were three.

"I didn't have a limit really, did I?" Bonnie says thoughtfully. "I hated them but I loved you. I'd do anything for you. I died for you. Not once but twice. I've done _anything_."

Elena presses her lips together until they form a line, and turns her back to Bonnie for a moment. Bonnie can see her shoulders shaking, and she can hear the sobs she's trying to muffle. When Elena turns back around, her face is dry, and it's hard to tell she was crying to begin with.

"You'd do anything for me except let them live?" she says. "Did you even think about how me and Caroline would feel? Did you even _care_?"

"I thought about it a lot," Bonnie admits.

"Not enough not to do it."

_No, not enough not to do it._

"I hated them," Bonnie says, "for a really long time. But my hatred for them was outweighed by my love for you. For you and Caroline."

Elena's face crumples and she hides herself behind her hands this time like she's lost the energy to turn away. She reaches for tissues on her nightstand and wipes her face. When she speaks her voice is still shaking. "When did that stop? When did you stop loving us?"

"I didn't." She can't imagine not loving Elena and Caroline. She will never stop loving them.

"You must have!" Elena says. "We wouldn't be having this conversation right now if you hadn't!" Fresh tears roll down her cheeks but she doesn't wipe these away. She clenches and unclenches her fists. The tissue in her hand falls to the floor and gets stepped on when Elena starts shifting again. She sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. "I never asked Damon or Stefan to do those things."

"You never asked them not to," Bonnie says quietly. "You never got angry with them. You did at first but then something happened. I don't know what. Maybe you just got tired." It's been over a year, like Elena said. They're all tired in some way. "I don't think they would have listened, but you would have still said something."

"Then you should have told me! We could have talked about it!" Elena's voice fills the whole house. Maybe it's the emptiness or maybe everything just seems louder right now, but it's a cavernous yell. Her voice is a little over a whimper when she speaks next. "You didn't have to kill them."

"Yes I did," Bonnie says. "No one else would have. They would have kept doing the same things. Over and over. Damon would find someone to kill. Stefan would find several someones. They would sacrifice me, Matt, Jeremy and Tyler. _Again_. If we hadn't killed them they'd still be here."

Elena looks horrified. "Do you _hear_ yourself? You sound like a crazy person! You killed people_."_

"Damon and Stefan weren't _people_, Elena," Bonnie snaps. "_I'm_ a person. Tyler and Jeremy are people. Elena, when did you stop loving me? I sound like a crazy person but Stefan and Damon were _sane_? Everything they did was okay?"

"No!" Elena says. She shoves her fingers into her hair like she wants to pull it out. "No! I-I-I-" Whatever that train of that was, Elena gives up on pursuing it. "You didn't have to kill them! We could have figured something out."

"We didn't want to figure something out. We wanted this."

Elena squeezes her eyes shut. More tears roll down her face to fall drip over her mouth and fall onto the satiny bodice of her dress. When licks the tears from her lips and opens her eyes. "Good for you, Bonnie. You got what you wanted."

* * *

Caroline was amused with him at first, with his mysterious nerves, and strange inability to articulate what he was trying to say. There was a smile teasing at her lips and a glint in her eye. Now she's confused. Her fingers have wound in the skirt of her dress and she bites down on her lip. Her eyes are wide.

"That's not funny," she says finally.

She was waiting for the punchline. Tyler almost wishes there was one.

"No, it's not," he says.

"Are you serious?" she asks as she stands. He already knows she realizes he's being totally serious. Her hands are shaking.

Tyler nods. "Yes."

Caroline's earrings fall onto the carpet and bounce in opposite directions. One rolls very close to Tyler's foot, and he almost stoops down to pick it up. If he offered it to her, it would be a weak peace offering, but it would be an offering. His fingers twitch in the direction of the tiny thing.

"Caroline-"

"Get out."

"I can-" _Explain. _He can explain. That's true. There are explanations, reasons he can list. They are valid - _more_ than valid.

"Get out," Caroline repeats. She grips the back of her chair, her knuckles white. If she squeezes any harder she'll break it.

He makes a third attempt. "Caroline, let me explain." He takes a step toward her as if to comfort her or _something_.

"Don't come near me!"

He hears the tears in her voice and they haven't even started falling yet. There's something else there, but he doesn't know what it is.

"I'm sorry," he says. Not that Stefan and Damon are dead, not that they killed them, but that she's hurt by it. That somehow Stefan made her think he was worthy of her friendship or her loyalty, that even in death Stefan still has it.

She's crying. Her mascara must be waterproof because it's not running. There are just transparent wet tracks falling down her cheeks. "_Get out_!"

He realizes what that other thing he hears is: fear.

She was always scared, when they talked about it at Elena's. She was scared from the start, scared of the people that killed Damon and Stefan, who she believed were surely coming for them next. He thought that would change if she knew who it was, but it hasn't.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, Caroline. I would never-"

Tyler moves just before the chair can strike him. It flies past to smash against the wall where it shatters into pieces. "_Get out!_"

"Okay," he says, holding up his hands. "I'm going."

When he gets back to his car, he sits for awhile. He can hear her inside. She's crying harder now, and he can hear her fumbling around for something. She drops curses occasionally then he hears the tone of buttons on a phone being pushed. He can hear the dial tone then the automated voice telling her to leave a message.

"Elena," Caroline says between sobs. "Please answer your phone. Tyler was just-Tyler was just here. He said-He said that-" She's interrupted by a sob that wrenches itself from her throat. Tyler leans his head back against the seat and closes his eyes. He can't bring himself to drive away yet. When she composes herself a little, she starts again. "Elena, please answer. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I-"

There's a beep. She's run out of time.

"Shit," Caroline says. She sniffs as she presses more buttons. She gets Matt's voice mail next. Its his voice instead of the automated one telling her to leave a message. She doesn't leave one this time. Instead she just cries.

Tyler knew this would happen, but he wasn't prepared.

Caroline's still crying when Tyler finally puts his key into the ignition and drives away.

* * *

"This whole time it was you?" Matt says. He didn't say anything at first. He just sat there, taking it in. For a minute Jeremy thought he might not have heard him or maybe he'd been distracted by something about the inventory. He was so quiet. Not anymore. "Are you fucking with me right now?"

"No." What else is there to say really?

"After Damon died," Matt says, "when Elena was almost _catatonic, _you guys were just doing what? Toasting to your victory?"

_Yes_, Jeremy thinks to himself. He doesn't dare say it out loud though.

"When Caroline was freaking out because she thought we were all going to be systematically picked off, you just _sat there_? We're all thinking we were going to be killed and you guys just let us?"

"We thought you might..." Jeremy says but his voice trails off and it seems like a weird thing to say out loud. They thought they might want to kill them for it.

"You thought what?"

"Nevermind."

Matt slams his hand on the table. "What the hell, Jer? Why'd you do this?"

Why does everyone keep asking _why_? It's not hard to grasp. The concept of hating Stefan and Damon Salvatore is not a difficult one, and Jeremy doesn't understand why so many people are having trouble with it. Him, Bonnie, and Tyler understood it just fine.

"Don't tell me you can't understand," he says. "Not after what they did to Vicki."

"Don't," Matt snaps. "I hated them for that and you know I did. But I didn't _kill_ them. Did all three of you collectively lose it or what? Look, I don't know what happened with Bonnie and Tyler or why they did this, but I know your Hunter thing is-"

"My Hunter thing isn't anything," Jeremy says. "It gave me the means but it didn't give me a reason. Damon and Stefan did."

"And now they're dead," Matt says, "so now what, Jer? What happens next?" He sighs down into his hands, and something seems to occur to him. "Why are you telling me this now? Did something happen?"

Jeremy swallows. Then he explains everything that happened tonight. Elijah and Elena threatening to hurt Tyler's mom, them undaggering Rebekah to dagger Elijah instead, and the three of them deciding to put everything out there so they could figure out what Elena's trying to do, so they don't have to lie anymore.

"Elena did _what_?"

"Yeah," Jeremy says. He doesn't know what to make of it either.

Matt rubs his face with his hands. He looks like he's aged in the few minutes they've been there. Eighteen going on thirty. "What the hell is going on?" He shakes his head and mumbles something to himself. "This isn't right. This isn't us. This isn't _you_." As if to distract himself, to give him anything to look at besides Jeremy, Matt pulls out his phone. "Caroline called."

"Tyler told her."

Matt sighs deeply. "Then she's probably out of her mind right now. I gotta go over there. Do you still want me to drive you back?"

"No," Jeremy says. He doesn't want to make Matt take him home, and he doesn't think he'll be able to stand the silence of the drive. It'll either be silent or it'll be more of this. He doesn't like either of those options. "I'll walk."

Jeremy follows Matt out and waits while he locks the doors back up. "I guess we'll talk more later," Matt says, jingling the keys in his palm. "About...this."

"I guess."

Jeremy watches Matt get into his truck. He waits until Matt pulls away to start walking.

* * *

Elena slumps onto her bed, resting her elbows on her knees, and covering her face. Bonnie's still standing. She feels more secure on her feet. "I wasn't going to hurt Tyler's mom," Elena says tiredly. She reaches for more tissues. "Elijah suggested it and-"

"You considered it."

Elena swallows but doesn't look at Bonnie. "As a last resort. I didn't know what you'd do to us. I told you we would lose against you. I just wanted to make sure we were safe."

"We weren't going to hurt you."

Hasn't Bonnie always protected Elena? Hasn't that been her priority from the start? Elena's in trouble so call Bonnie. If Elena's in trouble, Bonnie will help her. If Elena's in trouble Bonnie won't mind being hurt to save her. When did Damon and Stefan become synonymous with Elena? When did hating a Salvatore mean hating Elena? Why does killing a Salvatore mean you must want to kill Elena?

"You thought I would hurt you," Elena says as she crumples up the tissue and then flattens it against her knee. "Didn't you?"

"Yes," Bonnie confesses.

"I wasn't," Elena says. "Jeremy's my brother. I've known Tyler since we were little." She lifts her shoulders and lets them fall again. She seems to be trying to choose her words carefully. "You're my best friend."

When Elena turns to Bonnie she's reminded of Jeremy. Even with the muted blood they share, they look very alike. It's probably the eyes in that same disarmingly warm shade of brown, now shimmering with tears. The mask Elena wore earlier has fallen to be replaced by a face as open and as honest as her brother's. She's the Elena who Bonnie knew over a year ago, the Elena who still had parents, and had no idea vampires existed. She's the Elena who now seems to only exist in photographs. That was the Elena who Bonnie trusted with her life.

"I called Elijah here because I was scared," Elena goes on. "I knew - I _thought -_ he'd be able to protect us, or that he'd at least make you think twice about trying anything." She laughs to herself and looks back down at the tissue. She begins to tear it into tiny pieces. "So much for that."

"It was a good move," Bonnie says. She doesn't know what she's trying to do anymore. Is she trying to make her feel better? Is she trying to make them both feel better? In the course of a couple of weeks, she's forgotten how to talk to Elena.

Elena acts like she doesn't even hear her. "I'm used to losing people, Bonnie," she says. "I'm not used to you being the one to take them from me. How was I to know that you three wouldn't come for me, too? I don't think I know you anymore. We don't know each other anymore." She turns her head and catches sight of the framed photos on the nightstand. With another small laugh she reaches for the one of the two of them. "I gave you this picture for you birthday," she says, touching the glass, "because I wanted to remind you what we used to look like. I thought that if you saw us like this you would remember and you wouldn't want to hurt me."

"I wasn't going to hurt you," Bonnie repeats. "No one was."

"But I thought you were," Elena says, still staring at that picture. "I've never thought that before. We've never been on opposite sides of anything. Not even once. I've always trusted you to be with me through anything."

"Me, too," Bonnie says. First days of school, cheerleading tryouts, first dates. None went by without Elena at her side.

"Now what sides are we on?" Elena asks, her voice thick.

"I don't know," Bonnie says. It should be easier, she thinks. Now that Stefan and Damon are gone they should be able to be those girls again, the ones who were sisters and best friends. Maybe it could have been that way if Elena never found out or maybe it never would have gone back to that. Maybe too much has changed. She joins Elena on the edge of the bed, and isn't surprised when Elena shifts away from her a little. "I'm your best friend. I-"

"If you were my best friend," Elena says, focusing her stare on the floor, "you wouldn't have done this."

"If you were _my_ best friend, you never would have it let it go this far," Bonnie says. "But I'm not blaming you."

"Sounds like you are."

Bonnie shakes her head and tries to find the words she wants. "I'm not," she insists. "For the past year all the choices I made were to help you, and I always got hurt in the process. With my Grams, with my mom. Always. And I-"

"I never asked you to do those things for me," Elena says, sounding manic. She's talking fast, and she's still not looking at Bonnie. "I never wanted those things to happen. I didn't want any of this to happen."

"You're right," Bonnie says. "I didn't have to do it, but I did because I thought we were on the same side. I thought you would do the same for me."

Elena jumps to her feet and faces Bonnie. That Elena Bonnie thought she saw has disappeared. The picture falls to the floor with a loud thump but it falls face up, so Bonnie can see both of their faces still. If the girls in that picture could see them now what would they think? "I would!"

"But you never did," Bonnie says, looking up at the present day Elena. She should accept it. The Elena of the past is gone. Maybe that Bonnie is, too. "You never did anything. So I did it myself.

"So it is my fault?" Elena says. "It's _my _fault that the three of you decided murder was the only choice you had?"

"No. It's Stefan's and Damon's fault. They did what they did, and they're the ones who paid for it."

"_I'm_ paying for it, Bonnie! _Caroline_ is paying for it!" Bonnie's glad she doesn't mention Matt. "You can't kill people that we care about and expect us not to feel anything!"

"I don't expect that," Bonnie says. She's suddenly very exhausted. It was probably that word that did it: murder. She just wants to go home and see Jeremy and Tyler. They won't ask her why she wanted to do it or call her a murderer. They'll understand in a way that Elena never will. "I don't expect you to forgive us. We did what we did and we can't go back. There's no bringing them back."

Even if there was, Bonnie wouldn't do it.

"So I should just get over it then?" Elena says snidely. "Right? That's what you're saying."

"I'm saying that after my mom was turned into a vampire, you expected me to keep working with them," Bonnie says, "and I did because that was expected. I had to get over it."

"You _didn't_ get over it!"

"Maybe you won't get over it either," Bonnie says. Elena blinks at her as she understands. "Maybe you'll want to do what we did. If that's the case, then fine."

"_Bonnie_," Elena says softly. Her voice is a whisper. "I don't want that. Do you?"

"Of course I don't."

She might be relieved.

Elena lifts her hands, palms open. "So now what?"

"I don't know."

Elena must not know either because she doesn't say anything. Instead she lowers her eyes to the floor, where the picture still lies among the shreds of tissue she dropped there.

It seems their conversation has ended.

"If you want talk some more," Bonnie says, "you can call me or come by or something." Elena nods her head silently. Before going to the door, Bonnie picks up the photo, and rests it on the bed's edge. It's not Picture Elena and Picture Bonnie's fault this is what they are now. "I'll see you at school I guess." She's at the door when she stops again. "You should know that we had to use Rebekah's dagger on Elijah tonight. She'll be awake soon."

Elena turns around and shows her teeth in a disbelieving smile as she points her eyes to the ceiling. "Great," she says bitterly.

Bonnie turns back to the door. She's halfway out when Elena calls her name. "Yeah?"

"Will you tell Tyler I'm sorry?" she asks. She's playing with her ring again. "About his mom. I wasn't thinking straight. I wasn't going to hurt her." Bonnie smiles to herself a little bit but it fades when Elena says, "I'm not like you."

Bonnie huffs in annoyance, but she nods her head. "I'll tell him."

She starts back downstairs. She gets to the front door when Elena joins her there, little more than a blur. Bonnie tenses, her hand on the doorknob. "I thought we weren't trying to hurt each other."

Elena's mouth twists into a frown. "We're not. I just had a question."

Bonnie releases the doorknob. "What?"

"Who killed April?"

She sees white skin in the dark. A green dress and a red neck.

Bonnie answers. "Stefan."

With Elena's eyes turned to the floor and her lower lip trembling, Bonnie pulls the door open, and steps out onto the porch. She closes the door behind her and that panel of wood seems incredibly thick, packed with everything they said tonight and everything they've done. The night is cool. Bonnie didn't realize that she was sweating up there, but now her skin tingles in the air. She thinks she can hear Elena crying on the other side of the door, but she can't be sure. When the porch light flicks off, Bonnie exhales, closes her eyes, and thinks of home. It's not until she's in her bedroom, her feet firmly planted on the floor, that she starts to cry.

* * *

Tyler can hear Bonnie upstairs when he comes in. It's only because he's become so attuned to her lately because she's not making any noise, but he can hear her breathing and her steady heart. When he finds her in her room, she's lying on her bed staring at a picture of her and Elena on the nightstand. There's no light except for the candles scattered around. She hasn't even changed out of her dress.

"You're back," she says when she notices him. "Have you been with Caroline this whole time?"

"No," he answers. "I've been driving around for awhile. She threw me out right after I told her."

"Sorry."

Tyler shrugs his shoulders and tells himself that was the reaction they were expecting. He certainly wasn't expecting a warm hug and instant understanding, but it would have been nice if that's what they'd ended up with. "What happened with you and Elena?"

Bonnie rolls over onto her back and pats the side of her bed. He slips out of his jacket and drops it unceremoniously in her desk chair. When he lies down next to her, he exhales. It feels good to lie down. "What happened?" he repeats.

"She told me to tell you she's sorry," Bonnie says. "About your mom. She wasn't going to do anything to her."

Tyler turns his head to look at her profile but finds himself staring at her straight on instead. "Do you believe her?" he asks.

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "She was scared of us. She thought we were going to kill her, too."

He thinks of Caroline flinging that chair at him. "That seems to be the running theme."

"She's angry, too," Bonnie says. "But I think she was mostly scared. She brought Elijah here because she really did want him to protect her. From us." She sounds exhausted. He is, too.

"Lucy said we're scary," Jeremy says, stepping in through the door. Tyler didn't even hear him come in. He must be more tired than he thought. Jeremy pulls off his tie and jacket as Bonnie beckons him over, too.

"I thought she was just being funny," Tyler says as the bed shifts and dips with Jeremy's weight.

Bonnie has to move closer to Tyler to make room. Even then they're all still pressed together. Tyler doesn't mind. He's too tired to care.

"How did Matt take it?"

"Probably not as badly as Elena and Caroline did," Jeremy answers. "But not very well either."

"Elena asked me who killed April," Bonnie says, her eyes turned back to the ceiling. Her heartbeat picks up a little bit. "I told her it was Stefan."

Technically that's true.

Bonnie takes Tyler's hand, and he knows without looking that she's taken Jeremy's as well. She's quiet. They're all quiet. Then she says, "It's just us now."


	10. Three Is Company

Three is Company

The candles have all gone out but Tyler can see clearly in the dark. He doesn't know what woke him, not until he glimpses Bonnie fumbling through her chest of drawers. He glances across the bed and sees Jeremy, one arm thrown above his head while he sleeps. He can sleep through anything.

Bonnie pulls something out of the drawer, feeling over it with her hands, a pair of shorts and a tank top. She's as quiet as she can be, pushing the drawers closed with the tips of her fingers, but the quiet clicking sound as it closes might as well be a foghorn to Tyler's ears. When she turns away from the bed, she reaches for the zipper at the back of her dress.

Tyler could get up to help her, and be at her back before her fingers could even brush against the tiny metal contraption. He _could_ do that. Instead he stays where he is. In the dark he might startle her, and he doesn't want her to know he's looking. When she catches hold of the zipper and pushes it down, he can see her bra. It's black, strapless, and her fingers are reaching behind her to undo the clasp while she lets the dress rest at her hips. She deposits her bra into one of the drawers before wriggling out of the dress. He looks away as she pushes it down, but the sound of it hitting the floor deafening to Tyler's ears.

He swallows as she climbs back onto the bed and eases between him and Jeremy. He didn't see her grab another blanket, and he's surprised when she throws it over them, even Tyler though he doesn't feel the cold. She turns onto her side to make more room, her back to him. When her breathing deepens, he knows she's fallen asleep.

When morning comes, Tyler's twisted himself onto his side in the night. The sunlight filters through the blinds to cast thin slates on the floor, illuminating floating dust motes as they traverse the air. Rolling over, he bumps into Bonnie, who lets out a contended sigh. Jeremy's thrown an arm around her waist. The top of his head is visible over Bonnie's shoulder, where his face is buried in the curve of her neck, tickled by her hair. It could be the opening to some romantic drama, the moment after the happy couple has finally become a couple and wakes up together in the morning.

Or it would be if Tyler wasn't there.

He moves fast to his feet, pushing aside the blanket. He's reaching for his jacket slung over Bonnie's desk chair when she speaks. "What are you doing?" Her voice is still thick with sleep. She raises her head from the pillow and squints at him.

"I was just gonna...go," he says.

"Why?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "Come back. It's not like there's anything to do." She untangles herself from Jeremy to look at the digital clock on her nightstand. She makes a face at the time. It's a little past nine which is too early for a Saturday morning given the night they had. She presses her face against her pillow again and grumbles into it. "Tyler, come back."

He can't help smiling as he climbs back into bed. He sits against the headboard and looks down at her. "Rough night," he says.

Bonnie smiles slightly and she turns onto her back. She forces a breath of air from her mouth as she rubs her forehead. "It wasn't _all_ bad. Elijah's daggered isn't he?"

"Well, there's that," Tyler agrees. "I wish I could have seen you do it."

Bonnie's smile gets bigger and she moves her legs beneath the blanket. Her knees knock against him. "You wouldn't have been disappointed."

He's one hundred percent positive she's right about that.

"Do you think the others are ever gonna talk to us again?" He can still hear Caroline's voice and the _crack_ of her chair as it splintered into pieces behind him.

"I don't know," Bonnie answers. "Matt will, I think. Caroline might once she's had some time. Elena...I don't know."

"What else did she say last night?" he asks.

"Nothing unexpected," she responds. "How could I do that? Why did we have to kill them? We could have talked about it." She makes a clucking sound with her tongue. "Nothing important. Let's talk about something else." Whatever happened with her and Elena, it drained her. "Jeremy told me he loved me," she says. "Last night."

Tyler drops his gaze to her nose. "About time," he says with a laugh that might sound a bit too forced. "Was that news?" It's always been very clear to him that Bonnie's and Jeremy's business together is very unfinished, though neither of them really knows how to finish it, or keep it going as it would appear.

"I guess not," she says. "I just wasn't expecting it."

Tyler wonders if it's okay to ask. He decides it is. If she doesn't want to answer she won't, but he suspects he knows the answer already. Bonnie's tugging at a loose thread on her pillow case when he speaks, and her gaze is focused on the tiny, insignificant thing. She looks up when she hears his voice, and fixes her very green eyes on him.

"What did you say back?"

Bonnie's lips part slightly and she draws in a breath. "I told him I loved him, too," she says. Tyler distracts himself with the buttons on his sleeve. "Is that news?"

Tyler shakes his head slowly, and raises his eyes to hers again. "No." It was inevitable really. "But...where do we stand in all this?"

"Where do _you_ stand?"

"With you. And him. We're in this together, right?"

Bonnie nods and shifts to prop herself up on her elbow. "Right."

"I've always known you and Jeremy are _you and Jeremy_," he says. "I'm not expecting anything." He didn't expect what he's gotten this far. Bonnie kissing him that one time, Bonnie feeling anything for him outside the realm of friendship, Jeremy being fairly okay with the whole thing. It seems like too much to ask to be the endgame.

"It's just complicated," she says. "I told Jeremy the same thing. I don't want to mess us up. We've got enough problems without adding a love triangle to the mix."

"It's already been added, Bonnie," Tyler says. "And it's not messing anything up. We're okay." As if to prove it to her he leans down to peck the corner of her mouth. "We're all fine," he says against her lips. He feels her smiling.

When he pulls back, he can see her smile. "That's what Jeremy said."

"What else did he say?"

She looks hesitant for a minute but then she takes in a deep breath. "He told me that...you want whatever I want."

"I do," Tyler says.

Bonnie's eyes are hard on his and she presses her lips together, the corner curving upward into a smile she's trying to hide. "_Whatever_ I want," she clarifies. He can tell she doesn't thinks he's game for it, whatever it is.

Tyler cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes curiously. "Tell me what you want then. I'll give it to you."

Bonnie holds his gaze for a moment longer. Her tongue peeks through her lips, and he follows as she draws it back into her mouth. He'd rather she put it in his. She makes a quiet huffing sound as she looks away from him. "I _just_ said I didn't want to mess us up and now I'm this close to actually doing that," she says, rolling onto her back again and covering her face with her hands.

God, she's cute.

Tyler smiles as he drapes an arm over her waist, his fingers just barely avoiding brushing Jeremy's arm. He adjusts so his face is level with hers, his feet hanging off the bed's edge. He looks down at her. At the sloping neckline of her tank top, twisted slightly and straining against the curve of her breasts, her chest rising and falling slowly. He can hear her heartbeat, beating slightly faster than normal. He tells himself it didn't start beating even faster when he touched her. He drags his eyes up to her face again where she peeks through her fingers at him, one green eye visible. "What?" she asks, dropping her arms to her sides.

"Tell me," he urges.

"It's-"

"_Tell me_."

"Tyler," Bonnie says seriously. "It's not-"

"_What's_ not?" he asks. "Do you want us both? Is that what you're trying not to say?"

"No," she says, too quickly. Her eyes get wide and she glances away from his face.

Tyler laughs. "No?"

There's a smile that wants to appear on Bonnie's face, too, but she won't let it. "Tyler-"

He likes how she says his name.

"Bonnie. Do you want me to wake him?" he asks, nodding to Jeremy who is _still _sleeping_._He should probably be involved in this conversation.

"No," Bonnie says. Her voice drops to barely a whisper like she thinks they'll actually wake him. They won't. A hurricane might wake Jeremy up or maybe a hard shove, but otherwise he's lost to the world. "We're not-"

"If that's what you want," Tyler says, interrupting her. "We can figure it out."

"That's not normal."

"We're not normal, Bonnie."

A hybrid, a witch and a hunter. There is nothing normal about them.

"You know what I mean," she says. "People don't-" She waves her hands around in a circle. "_You know."_

"People do," Tyler says. They just don't know them. Who is there to judge anyway? Elena? Caroline? Matt? They've got bigger things to be horrified about than the three of them being _the three of them_. And if they're not friends anymore anyway, then what's the harm in it? It's not like they have to advertise it. They're good at keeping secrets, after all.

Bonnie makes a stern face and rolls her eyes.

"If you don't want it, then we don't do it," Tyler says. "But if you do want it, then we can try. If you want to be with Jeremy, you can be with Jeremy. If you want to be with me the next day you can be. No jealousy, no conflict, no shame, just...you know, whatever."

Bonnie's quiet. They stare at each other for what seems like a long time. Maybe he imagines it, but he thinks he sees her eyes drop to his mouth. "I'm gonna take a shower," she says..

"Okay," he says, moving his arm so she can climb out of bed. "Think about it. Let us know."

He relaxes against the headboard again as she turns around to look at him. He sees her eyes slide from him to Jeremy. She laughs to herself as she shakes her head. When he hears the water start running in the bathroom, he leans his head back, and closes his eyes.

* * *

Jeremy looks at his phone. No messages, no missed calls, nothing. He considers calling Matt himself, but he doesn't think he'd answer, and he doesn't really want to talk if it'll just be more of the same of last night. But they haven't heard anything, not even about Rebekah being up and biting again. The only people he's spoken to this morning have been Bonnie and Tyler, which is nice, but usually he would have heard from Elena by now at least. She used to invite him over for dinner or lunch or something on the weekend. Now that the truth is out there, that seems unlikely.

The three of them eat scrambled eggs in front of the TV. Tyler sips from a blood bag through the morning. Bonnie avoids doing homework and reads from a grimoire instead. Sometimes she pauses to text Lucy back. They've been talking all morning, Lucy assuring her that Ramona's definitely out of the picture, and Bonnie making sure Lucy is definitely out of town and far away from Klaus. Jeremy takes inventory of his hunting gear while Tyler watches. Sometimes he checks his phone, too, and Jeremy knows Bonnie does. It's always a text from Lucy on the other side of that beep, but she still expects it to be someone else.

"I'm gonna go to my house," Tyler says, "to pick up the mail."

"Your _mail_?" Jeremy says.

"He has college letters," Bonnie says, "that he hasn't looked at."

Tyler pulls on his jacket. "And I should look at them. Be back in a few."

Bonnie's house has never felt so still. Outside of it, what's going on? Klaus may be reining Rebekah or she may be wreaking havoc on her brother. She's probably being clued in to all that's happened since she's been gone, Stefan and Damon being killed and everything. Within a few days Klaus and Rebekah will both probably know who's responsible for that. That's going to be a hard secret to keep. It won't just be Klaus and Rebekah. It might be Sheriff Forbes and what's left of the Council. Jeremy's not looking forward to the way Caroline's mom will look at them all once she knows the truth. He can't remember if she was still kind of friends with Damon or not.

Well, she did kill Jeremy once and that death would have been pretty permanent if not for Bonnie. He could always mention that if she decided to scold him or something.

Tyler returns with a stack of envelopes in hand and he joins Bonnie on the couch to open them. She takes half and he takes the other. She reads off the names of the schools there. Whitmore. Duke. University of Virginia. University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. University of Southern California. University of California - Berkeley. And those are just a few.

"I'm surprised you're looking at California," Bonnie says.

Tyler shrugs his shoulders and reaches for the envelopes. "It's far. Isn't that why you applied all the way out there?"

"Are you actually gonna go?"

Tyler becomes quiet. He stares down at the envelopes with their glossy seals. "I don't know. I like having the option."

Jeremy wishes he had the option.

"Well, Gilbert," Tyler says, propping his feet up on the coffee table but turning his head enough to look over his shoulder at Jeremy, "what do you think about California? You'll have to come with us if Elena decides to disown you. I can compel someone at a high school to let you register."

Jeremy grins but doesn't say anything as he rolls wooded bullets along the table's surface. "Sun and surf. What's not to like?"

It's hard to tell if Tyler's being serious or not. But where will he go when Bonnie and Tyler leave? He hasn't called his house home in months, and now that Elena knows what they did, it's unlikely she'll be extending anymore invitations for him to return. But Jeremy can't imagine following Bonnie and Tyler across the country where they'll be freshmen. It's not like they'll want Jeremy, still in high school, around to hang out in their dorm rooms. He'll be _that kid _following his older friends to parties.

Tyler will probably pledge some fraternity, and he'll eventually become president of said fraternity. All his frat brothers will know and adore Bonnie, his girlfriend, who no one will be able to say a negative thing about her. They'll all find her peculiar interest in the occult a little quirky, but they'll think she's incredibly sweet and painfully beautiful. Everyone will know them or want to know them or want to _be_ them. How will Jeremy fit into these new lives they'll build for themselves? They won't be able to make room for him.

But there's no room for him here either.

"Jeremy," Bonnie says, "wanna go hunting?"

He smiles. It'd be nice to stake some vampires today. "It's not like we're doing anything else."

* * *

After a four hour roundtrip drive, staking four murderous vampires, chowing down on greasy fries and burgers at a diner along the way, and growing Jeremy's Mark by a measly three inches, they return to Bonnie's house. Jeremy's stares at his arm, expecting the Mark to grow a little bit more. Maybe it's having a delayed reaction.

"This is fucking ridiculous," he says indignantly, when it becomes apparent it's done all the progressing it's going to do for today. "This thing should be at least halfway done by now. How long is this gonna take?"

"As long as it takes," Bonnie says as she flings herself onto the couch. Tyler sits down with her and "We'll pick up the pace. We'll go at least once a week. Maybe more if we can, and we'll have to average out at least five vampires each time just to be safe. In a month or so we'll see where we are."

They might not have a month.

They didn't go to Nex this time but to another bar, further out but just as vampire heavy. Lucy suggested it. They didn't want anyone at Nex to realize they were making this a regular thing. The one they found was named Molly's and it was a dive. Vampires fed on humans in the dark corners. They few that bothered to hide their activities in the bathrooms with its suspiciously stained floors, killed the humans right there, and disposed of the bodies there, too. At least the ones fed on in the open usually got to leave.

Bonnie was more careful about them. She didn't want Jeremy too close so she sent them a few streets over, where they were better hidden. Tyler was there for each one, making sure nothing went to awry, and nothing did. It was uneventful. The humans being fed on were directed to Tyler, who fed them his blood and compelled them to run. Jeremy wanted to stay longer, kill a few more, but the crowd inside had started to thin. Taking any more might attract some attention.

"There's still a lot here," Bonnie says, examining his arm. She traces over the Mark with her fingers, seeing the new additions. "I can start trying to figure this much out and then we'll be halfway there when it finishes."

She's trying to be optimistic. At least one of them is. Tyler seems indifferent but he's got to be just as impatient. If this Mark will get them closer to killing Klaus, it would be nice if it didn't take a century or so to get it there. First Bonnie tries to take a picture of the mark with her phone but it doesn't show up so Jeremy decides to sketch it. Tyler grabs the mirror mounted on the wall in the hallway and another from Bonnie's room to hold so Jeremy can see. They sit in the living room together, Jeremy shirtless and drawing and Tyler helping how he can while Bonnie tries to decipher the meanings. She mumbles about Silas and Qetsiyah and takes notes in the margins of her own grimoire.

After about an hour, in which Jeremy watches a repeat of the squid documentary Tyler and Bonnie were watching the other day, Bonnie says she has to call Shane.

* * *

"I can come and show you what we have so far later," Bonnie says, perching on the edge of her bed. She has no idea what any of the illustrations signify, if anything. There's magic there, she can feel that much, but she doesn't know what she's supposed to do with it. "On Monday if that's okay."

The thought of going back to the school is a dreary one. Homeroom with Caroline will be terrible, as will class with Matt. Elena and Caroline will probably both skip lunch, but if she asks Tyler to sit with her, he will. But how long will that go on? For a week? A month? The rest of the semester? Is she going to graduate while not speaking to either of her best friends? Well, they'll graduate not speaking to her, too, so Bonnie supposes they'll all be suffering that one.

"I"m teaching all day," Shane says, "and I've got meetings all afternoon plus I have some research to send out. I won't be done until after six. You're welcome to come then."

Always so busy.

"I will," she says. Maybe she'll skip school entirely? But then Elena might think Bonnie has reason to be ashamed, and she definitely doesn't have any reason to feel ashamed for what she did, what she helped Tyler and Jeremy do. And she doesn't want to give Elena the satisfaction. But Bonnie doesn't think she wants to put herself through a full day of classes either, where she'll spend the whole day wondering what Elena and Caroline are thinking. Maybe she'll ask Tyler and Jeremy to skip with her. They can make this a three day thing.

"There's actually something I wanted to talk to you about," Shane says, pulling Bonnie from her thoughts. "Regarding Silas."

"What about him?"

"We'll talk about it on Monday," he says. "I'll see you then. Have a good night, Bonnie."

She hangs up and rejoins the boys downstairs. Jeremy's finished with his sketching and he passes the papers to Bonnie.

"Bonnie," Jeremy says, after a few seconds, "are they okay?"

She nods. "They're great. I'm showing them to Shane on Monday. We'll try to figure out what I'm supposed to do."

Jeremy doesn't bother to put his shirt back on. Maybe because he and Tyler are too riveted by that squid. Well, they never got to see the end last time. Bonnie sets the sketches down on the table and squeezes between them to watch. At least staring at Jeremy she can pretend she's simply interested in the Mark, which is what she'll say if Jeremy notices that she's looking at him instead of paying attention to the squid and its tentacles and the ocean science guy with the accent. As Tyler extends an arm along the back of the couch, she thinks about what he said this morning.

_Think about it. Let us know_.

She's definitely thinking about it.

She doesn't know if she'll tell them.

* * *

Tyler likes to give Jeremy shit about being a deep sleeper, but he's not exactly a light one himself. Bonnie sits at the edge of the bed for at least five minutes, humming contentedly, and playing with the hem of her giant Mystic Falls Cheer Squad t-shirt, before he wakes up.

"Hey," he says groggily, sitting up. Does he always sleep shirtless? And apparently pantless as well? "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she answers. She folds her bare legs beneath her. He might have caught a glimpse of her underwear when she did that, but if he did he pretends otherwise.

He rubs one of his eyes and smiles. "So, what's up then?" The arm he raises is the one with the bracelet on it with those ridiculously hideous shells. She reaches out to touch it, pulling his arm toward her. Her lips quirk upward into a smile as she drags a finger along the length of his arm, across the vein, stopping when she reaches his bicep.

"Bonnie," Tyler says. "This is fun but...what are you doing?"

She meets his eyes with hers. They're brown, so, _so_ brown. While Jeremy's eyes are a sweet, patient brown, Tyler's burn with intensity. "I thought about it," she says.

Tyler's eyes widen slightly with understanding. "Oh."

Bonnie tugs on his arm. "Come on." They're definitely not doing this in her dad's bed.

He comes with her, lacing their fingers together as she pulls him toward her bedroom. The candles are lit again, like some cheesy nineties movie where the heroine is about to lose her virginity to her dream guy. If this was a movie there might also be rose petals strewn across the bed, but that may be hard to work up with Jeremy sitting there, his back against the headboard and wearing only a pair of baggy gym shorts. He looks up when they come in and he smiles as Bonnie pushes the door closed.

Bonnie releases Tyler's hand to go to Jeremy and straddle him. He doesn't say anything when he kisses her, tangling his fingers in her hair, and kissing her so completely she feels it _everywhere_. When his lips drop to her neck and his tongue flicks out to taste her skin, she exhales. With her fingers stroking the back of his neck, she turns her head.

Tyler's still at the door.

With a slow smile, she extends her hand. _Come here._

The words have barely brushed against his brain when he's beside them on the bed, kissing her. She relishes in the familiar chill of his lips and the equal coldness of his fingers as he turns her chin to him. It's Tyler's mouth she gasps into when Jeremy's fingers, warm and gentle, skim beneath her shirt and across her breasts. Another gasp later and Tyler's tongue slips into her mouth. He does amazing things with his tongue. She takes one hand off Jeremy to slide it around Tyler's neck and hold him there. Bonnie sighs when Tyler's hands slide to her waist and rest delicately at the top of her panties. When his fingers slip inside them, _inside her, _she grins against his mouth. She feels him smiling, too.

Jeremy pulls away to lift her shirt over her head. Tyler breaks their kiss to help. When it's gone, thrown somewhere onto the floor, he pulls her mouth to his again while Jeremy's tongue skates along her neck and then lower, to the valley between her breasts.

"_Bonnie."_

In that moment she doesn't know which of them says it. Maybe it was both.

When she wakes up, her room is filled with pale sunlight. Outside she can hear a few squirrels taking their usual morning perusal of the tree outside her window. There's no Tyler, no Jeremy. It's just her. She lets out a sigh as she squeezes her eyes closed again. She can still feel Tyler's fingers and Jeremy's mouth.

Tyler's just down the hall and Jeremy's downstairs. She could go to one of them (both of them?) right now if she wanted to. They said it was okay.

But no.

_I do not need a love triangle_, Bonnie thinks. Still, it was a pretty good dream or it could have been, had she been allowed to get to the good parts. She rolls onto her back, and she smiles as she slips her hand between her thighs.

It's a good thought - an impossible thought - but a good one.

Welcome to Mystic Falls where three is company.

* * *

**There may be a few mistakes in this one, typos and such, but I have to go deal with real life and I wanted to get this up. I will make any necessary corrections tomorrow. We'll see Matt, Caroline, and Elena again next chapter. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	11. Fun Times At Mystic Falls High Pt 1

Fun Times at Mystic Falls High

Part One

Tyler hasn't looked at the moon in awhile. Not with any real purpose. He's walked in its light and known it's there, but he's never turned his eyes up to it, and he doesn't really know why he chooses tonight to end that streak. Maybe it's because he's alone. Bonnie's at Whitmore with Shane, and Jeremy's at the library being academic. Tyler's at home with nothing to do except wax philosophic about his life and what it used to be.

The moon could have been called his enemy once. Another one on top of vampires and Katherines and Originals. The moon was as much a tormentor as any of them. Tonight it's full, and he remembers when that would have meant something terrible for him. He would have descended into the cellar with chains and wolfsbane and fear.

He's glad they skipped school today. A three day weekend was exactly what they needed. The day was quiet but it passed quickly without any word from Elena, Caroline, or Matt. Jeremy thought they may have skipped for the same reason they did. Perhaps none of them wanted to share any awkward eye contact today.

Besides a gentle wind that stirs the trees dotting the backyard, shaking the bushes, and blowing around microscopic specks of dirt, the night is still. It's still cool but spring will be coming. Spring will mean warmth and sunshine and choosing a college, picking up his graduation stuff, sending out invitations. He doesn't even know who to invite. His mom knows all the random aunts, uncles and cousins scattered throughout the country who Tyler hasn't seen since childhood. And who knows if he'll go to graduation at all?

His phone rings. In the dark, the pale blue glow of the screen is the only light. Caroline's name flashes across it. This is what they've been waiting for. They waited a whole weekend for _someone_ to talk to them, and now here it is. He wonders what Caroline will say. With a sigh, he reaches for his phone and presses the green button to answer.

"Caroline," he says, "I'm glad you called."

"Oh, this is awkward."

"_Rebekah?_"

The slowness of her accent, the drag of her Original specific arrogance. It's been a while since he's heard it but it is undeniable. Rebekah has finally found reason to make contact.

"Yes, the _other _blond, darling," she says. "I'm glad you haven't forgotten me. I was quite concerned too much time had passed."

Tyler stands up, unable to do anything else, and thinking that being on his feet will somehow help him prepare for what Rebekah has to say. "You're hard to forget."

"_Oh, stop_," Rebekah says. "I see you haven't lost your charm."

"Not yet," Tyler says. "But I can lose it really fast. Where's Caroline?"

He tries to hear her in the background. He tries to hear _anything, _but all is quiet. And that's worse than if Caroline was screaming.

"Oh she's here," Rebekah answers. "Please come join us. I would _love_ to see you."

"Where are you?"

"The school," Rebekah answers. "Do be prompt, Tyler. I abhor tardiness. And who knows what I'll be forced to do to entertain myself in your stead?" She hangs up before Tyler can say anything more, and he returns to the house to grab his jacket and keys.

He knew they'd regret waking her up.

* * *

Shane's office is messy today which is strange considering he's usually so anal about it. There are books everywhere and used teabags that Bonnie brushes into the trashcan. He looks to her gratefully. "Too busy to clean, I see," she says, perching on the corner of his desk as the chair she usually occupies has been overrun with papers, folders, and giant photos of ancient occult artifacts. The sketches of Jeremy's Mark are swallowed up in a separate folder. She doesn't know if she'll see them again.

"It's been an interesting few weeks," Shane says. "And there are midterms coming up. I've got tests to write."

"So we'll keep it short," she says. "I have to tell you something."

He looks up at her curiously. "You do?"

"Yes."

With an amused smirk and a cock of his head he says, "More boy trouble?"

She wouldn't call it trouble exactly. Trouble would imply that something bad is happening, and she can't label that dream she had as bad.

"Not at the moment," she answers, smiling and kicking her legs a little. "You remember Stefan Salvatore."

"I do," Shane says, as he leans back in his chair and folds his hands in his lap.

"I killed him," Bonnie says. "With my friends, Tyler and Jeremy. We killed Damon, his brother, too."

Shane's face goes from his usual delightfully curious half smile to a frown. He leans forward again and rest his elbows on the top of his desk. With wide eyes, he doesn't really know where to look. Finally he lets out a breath. "Well, I...don't know what to say to that."

"Atticus Shane," Bonnie says, "speechless. This is unusual."

Shane grins and rests his chin on his hands. "I realize that."

"I didn't do it just because I could," she tells him quickly. "I had reasons for it. I'm not some serial killer. I don't have locks of their hair hidden in my room or anything."_  
_

Shane chuckles and shakes his head in amusement. "I know you, Bonnie. You wouldn't have done it if you hadn't had to, right?"

It's nice to tell someone and not have them think she's lost her mind. Shane doesn't look at her like she's done something terrible, or like she's suddenly a different person. He just smiles and leans back in his chair again, comfortable, content. He doesn't call her a murderer.

She returns his smile with one of her own. "I thought you should know since everyone else does."

"Who's everyone else?"

"My other friends," she says, looking down at her fingers and balling them into a fist. "Maybe _former_ friends." Skipping school today might have been the best idea she's had in awhile. Though she can't exactly skip for the rest of the semester.

Shane nods in understanding. "Well, thank you for telling me."

"There's more."

"There is?" he says warily.

"Elijah Mikaelson."

"He's dead, too?"

Bonnie smiles and shakes her head. "No, he's just out of the way. That's why I wanted you to leave the fundraiser. I didn't want you to get hurt in case something went wrong."

"You were quite adamant," Shane says. "Thank you for the concern."

She holds off on mentioning Klaus, just in case the Original does decide to pay Shane another visit. He can't be compelled, courtesy of some tricks he's picked up on his travels, but torture sometimes loosens lips and Klaus isn't above going a round.

"You wanted to tell me something about Silas," she reminds him.

"Yes," Shane says, drumming his fingers on his desk. "Do you remember the last time we talked about him?"

Bonnie nods. She's made it her job to remember everything about this cure and Silas. "Male witch who was made immortal and imprisoned by Qetsiyah," she says. "He knows the spell to cure vampirism."

Shane nods along as she speaks. Just like a professor, he seems pleased with her memory. But he makes a face, folding his lips, and sighing. "That's what I _thought_."

She blinks. "You mean you don't think that anymore?"

"I mean the research is...contradictory," he says. "Some says Silas is a witch and he needs you to unbind him and his powers. Other literature says his immortality was contingent on him becoming a vampire. And once he became a vampire, he lost his powers. It says the cure isn't a spell but a liquid, created by Qetsiyah, and placed inside Silas' tomb with him. She hoped he'd take it and die while he was trapped there."

"Well how do we know Silas _didn't _take the cure and die in there?"

"I don't think he would have," Shane says.

"Because you _know_ Silas so well," she says sarcastically.

Her annoyance is probably apparent but it just rolls off Shane, who laughs too himself. "Silas was an incredibly prideful man," he says. "He wouldn't have given Qetsiyah the satisfaction."

"Being trapped in a tomb for eternity might make someone change their minds about that," Bonnie says. "What if he's not in there at all, Shane? I _can't_-" They've based plans on this, this hope for a cure, and it might not exist. What will she tell Tyler and Jeremy? That Klaus can't be killed after all, not without killing Caroline, Elena, Bonnie's mom, and Tyler himself?

"Shane," she says, "I _need _this cure._" _He doesn't know half of why she needs it so badly.

"I know you do," he says gently, extending his fingers to touch her hand at the desk's edge. "And I'll get you to it. Trust me, Bonnie. Silas _is_ in there and so is your cure. It's just a matter of getting there, which we will."

"How do you know he's there?"

"I told you," Shane says calmly. "I've been there, and he _is _down there. I promise. I just don't know what _state_ he's in. He could be a witch or a vampire or...something else entirely."

"That sounds ominous," she says. "Are you sure he's not going to destroy the world?" She says it like a joke, but now she's not so sure.

Her experience with vampires has been mostly terrible. If they thought Klaus was bad, what kind of hell will an even more ancient vampire be? A witch she can handle, no matter how old. She can learn spells, she can get stronger. She _is_ stronger. But if this is what it takes to kill Klaus what will it take to kill Silas if need be?

Shane laughs. "He's not going to destroy the world, Bonnie. Why would he do that?"

"Because he can?"

Shane laughs again. She's very hilarious apparently. "I just wanted you to know," he says. "At least all the research is pretty consistent with the role of the hunter and his Mark. By utilizing that magic, you'll unlock Silas' tomb. It's just everything _after_ that's a little murky."

"Well," Bonnie sighs. "That sounds...lovely."

"We'll work it out," Shane says. "With me, you, and your Hunter friend, we'll be just fine. No one will destroy the world or anything like that. You'll get your cure."

"Sounds good," Bonnie sighs, hopping down off his desk. "I've gotta get home. Tell me if you find something more definite?"_  
_

"Of course," he promises as he rises to his feet. He grabs her jacket for her and holds it up for her to slide her arms into it. "Planning on killing anymore vampires?"

"Not anytime soon," she says. Technically Klaus isn't only a vampire. She flips her hair out of her collar. "Bye."

Shane raises his hand in wave as she steps out into the hallway and closes the door with a muted click. When she turns around she sees someone coming down the hall. He's tall and slender, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. As they pass one another, he gives her a polite nod. He's good-looking, in more of an average, baby faced kind of way. It's not until she's at the end of the hall that she realizes she's seen him before. The face is hazy but she remembers the walk, but she can't place where she saw it.

It was in the dark, with the light of flames around her and beating back the chill in the air. He's walking alongside two others, his brothers. Bonnie remembers Esther speaking about her children. There were five: Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol.

_Kol_.

Bonnie turns around just in time to see the door to Shane's office being closed.

She's back in his office with less than a blink but it's empty.

She's gotta hand it the Originals. They move fast.

The window behind the desk has been opened. It overlooks a tiny wooded area. A little to the right and she can see the staff parking lot.

_Don't panic_, Bonnie tells herself, even though her pounding heart isn't listening. If Kol wanted Shane dead he would have snapped his neck and moved on. Instead he took him away. But where? She sifts through his desk to pull out a map of Mystic Falls. She's seen him poring over it before. He's marked it with random circles and lines. One of them may be pointing to the old witch house, where the hundred dead witches still dwell. She spreads it on the floor before going back to Shane's desk and finding a ropey strand of...something he sometimes calls a necklace. She just hopes it works. It's not as potent as blood but Shane hopefully isn't too far, and sitting in his office surrounded by all the crap he likes, maybe the magic won't call for too much else.

She pulls a bottle of water from her bag and pours a few drops onto the map's surface, right above Whitmore's campus, where they pool but do not seep in. The water hovers as if it's waiting for something.

Bonnie closes her eyes and thinks of Shane.

The water inches forward and slides along the bright yellow line of the interstate. It passes a few historical sites, the town square, the Sheriff's Department, the hospital. It stops over the words Mystic Falls High School, the words distorted and bubbly beneath the water.

Bonnie pulls out her phone and dials Jeremy. He answers on the second ring.

"Yeah?"

"Kol's back," Bonnie says frantically, "and he took Shane."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know," she sighs. Why do the Originals do anything? "They're at the school. Get Tyler and meet me there."

* * *

Tyler hasn't been inside the school after hours since the night he was turned into a hybrid, and he forgot how creepy it is. With the halls dark and deserted, he expects Klaus to step out at any moment and reach for his heart again. The jury's still out on what'll happen tonight. Rebekah isn't Klaus but she's not harmless either, and she'd have just as easy a time removing his heart. He's passing the gym when he sees. The bleachers have been lowered and there's a slim shadow that paces in front of them with a head of shiny blond hair.

Tyler yanks open the doors. "Rebekah."

"Tyler," she says, turning around to face him. Her hair hangs in lush curls down her back and her lips are smeared with pale pink lipgloss. At first glance she might be harmless, possibly innocent, the victim not the perpetrator, but Tyler knows better. She's like her brothers, ancient and lethal. "I thought I heard something. I'm so glad you could make time in your _busy_ schedule to meet us here."

Tyler notices the us.

Caroline and Elena.

They're lying beside the bleachers, both of them bloody and unconscious. Caroline's curls obscure her face but Elena is face down. He goes toward Caroline, speeding across the waxed floor, but Rebekah catches hold of him and pulls him back. "They're alive," she says through gritted teeth. "I just broke their necks."

"Why all the blood?" he says. She allows him to pull his arm away.

"They were on vervain," Rebekah says with a shrug. "That wasn't conducive to our game so I had to bleed it out of them."

"What's the game?" he asks, catching sight of the pile of heavy chains sitting on the bottom row of the bleachers. "What do you want?"

"The truth," Rebekah says. "I try to be nice to you people and all I get for my trouble is lies. It's twice now that I've been stabbed in the back by you and your _friends._ We're going to do it a little differently this time around." She reaches for his face and turns him around to face her. Narrowing her eyes, she leans into him and inhales slowly.

When she pulls back, roughly releasing his chin, her face is screwed up in disgust. "You're on vervain, too? Typical. Well, we can work with that."

Tyler knows what she's going to do before she does it. He's been here before with Originals. He smacks her reaching arm away but the other one comes even faster to twist his head around.

* * *

Jeremy's waiting at the school when Bonnie arrives. He's sitting on the hood of Tyler's car, his crossbow swung across his back, and a gun sticking out of the back of his jeans. He straightens up when she approaches. "Where's Tyler?" she asks, glancing around.

"In there somewhere."

Bonnie squints in confusion. "He went in without us?"

"No," Jeremy says. "He wasn't at home and he didn't answer his phone so I walked here by myself. His car was already here. I saw Elena's and Caroline's, too. I would have gone in but I didn't want to leave you hanging."

Bonnie closes her eyes and takes a calming breath. Or at least it's supposed to be calming. It's not. Elena and Caroline plus Tyler plus Kol and Shane equals Rebekah. At least Bonnie can say she wasn't wrong about the lone Original sister making them all wish they'd left her daggered. "Let's go."

She touches Jeremy's shoulder. They appear in the main hallway outside of all the administrative offices and Bonnie does inventory. The dead things in this building outnumber the living: four vampires, two of which are Originals; a hybrid; a hunter; one witch; and a professor.

"Tyler's with Rebekah," Bonnie says. "Elena and Caroline are there, too. Kol's with Shane."

"We can split up," Jeremy suggests.

"I don't think-"

"We have to make sure they're okay," he says.

"You'll be going up against an Original _alone_," she points out. She can handle Kol the same way she handled Elijah. Granted, it won't end with a dagger to his heart, but he might end up crawling out of this school on hands and knees. Rebekah, on the other hand, can snap Jeremy's neck easily, and Bonnie doesn't want to give his ring another workout.

"I won't be alone," Jeremy insists. "Tyler's there and so are Elena and Caroline. All four of us against Rebekah? We can handle it."

"And we don't know what Rebekah's done to them," Bonnie says. "Or what she's going to do. Jeremy-"

"_Bonnie_," he says, touching her shoulders. "You get Shane. I'll get Tyler. Unless you want me to get Shane. I'd like to see Kol again." She smiles at the twitch of his lips.

"I'm not sticking you with the Original we know the least about," she says. "I'll handle Kol and get Shane out of here."

Jeremy looks slightly disappointed but he nods. "Where are Tyler and the others?"

"The gym."

"Where are you going to be?"

"Janitor's closet," she says. Jeremy arches his eyebrows. "Don't ask me why. It's the one nearest the library. When I'm done, I'll come help you but if you need me, that's where I am. Don't do anything stupid, okay?"

Jeremy smiles and pulls his crossbow into his hands, jostling the bag of reserve arrows on his back. "See you soon."

* * *

When Tyler comes to he's chained to the bleachers and his stomach is sliced to ribbons. The cuts are deep enough that he thinks he can see bone, and his healing isn't kicking in yet. The knife Rebekah used must be saturated with wolfsbane. He shifts slightly which aggravates his wounds, and makes him suck in a breath. The sound alerts Rebekah who is taking a leisurely stroll through the room, rotating a blade in between her fingers.

"Ah, you've rejoined us," she says, bending her steps toward him.

Elena and Caroline, now awake, are only a few feet away. Caroline's against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around herself. She's tense and miserable, staring at Tyler with somber eyes. He remembers her in her bedroom, and wonders what she's thinking now. Elena is a different story. Her legs are stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankle. With her hands in her lap, she leans her head back against the wall. She's not looking at him at all. Something on the ceiling is more interesting.

"Not much longer and the vervain will have left you completely," Rebekah explains. "Then I'll be able to compel you like these two." She nods to Elena and Caroline, whose presence is explained. They're sticking around, but Rebekah didn't compel them to be happy about it.

"Now I heard you've been quite busy," the Original says, "killing Damon and Stefan." She tilts her head to the side and waits for him to say something. Tyler makes her wait for a while.

"Miss him? He was your ex-boyfriend, wasn't he? "

"Do I miss the man who helped my beloved brother dagger me? _No_," Rebekah says. "Do I miss Damon? Even less. If you ask me, you should have done it sooner. However, it didn't go over well with these two. We've been discussing it, and they're quite cross with you. Our conversation has been quite enlightening actually." She counts them out on her fingers. "I've heard there's a cure to vampirism; there's a nice little professor who will lead me to it; before Damon's untimely death he and Elena got to know each other _biblically; a_nd you and Caroline broke up." She throws up her hands and lets out a sarcastic laugh. "Love doesn't conquer all, it seems."

Tyler doesn't look at Caroline but keeps his eyes hard on Rebekah. "You would know."

Her smile fades as she takes a small step forward. "That I would, Tyler." She folds her arms across her chest and the blade glimmers in the sparse light. "So, why the sudden change of heart? When I last saw you and Caroline you were ever so in love. What changed? Was it my brother? Did he manage to dim the bright light that is Caroline Forbes? Or did you simply tire of one another?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Tyler says. "Why didn't you ask _her_?"

"I did," Rebekah says. "Her answer wasn't very satisfying, even with the compulsion. I'd like to hear your side, however. Was there someone else, Tyler? Someone else for you?"

Bonnie's face appears in Tyler's mind, with a backdrop of lavender bedsheets.

"No," he says.

She narrows her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Tyler repeats.

Rebekah approaches him with cool indifference and examines his torn torso with mild curiosity. She rests the bloody tip of the blade against her chin before letting it drop away. Then she leans toward him, a cool hand gripping his shoulder so hard he feels his bones grinding, and she takes a casual bite of his neck.

It's not meant to kill or even seriously hurt. When Rebekah steps back her fangs are exposed and tipped with his blood. She drags her tongue lazily across them, savoring the taste. "Your vervain is gone," she says. "So, Tyler. Let's try again. _**Tell me if there was someone else**."_

"There-" Tyler begins. He's about to say there wasn't. Not then at least.

"Is this necessary?" Elena questions before he can finish. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

Rebekah rolls her eyes in annoyance. "Elena, do shut up. I know you get a bit testy when people aren't paying attention to you, but let Tyler have his moment will you?"

"You're pathetic," Elena hisses. "Why are you here with us picking at old wounds when the person you're really angry with is Klaus? He's the one who daggered you! Why don't you go fight with him?"

Rebekah breaks away from Tyler to go to Elena, sliding a hand around her throat. She lifts her from the floor easily, and squeezes just hard enough that Elena can't speak. "Elena," she says_, _"the way I see it these wounds are quite fresh.**_ Now be a good girl and do not speak unless you are spoken to_.**" When she lets Elena go, the brunette drops to the floor with a grunt. As she straightens up and presses her back to the wall again, Caroline reaches out to touch her hand.

"Now, where were we?" Rebekah asks, coming to Tyler again.

"There wasn't anyone else," Tyler says. "We just broke up."

"But _why_?"

He doesn't need compulsion to answer honestly. "Stefan told Klaus I was unsiring hybrids and was the Alpha then Klaus killed all of them. Caroline told Stefan everything he needed to know to get my pack and _me_ killed. I got tired of being her second choice."

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Caroline look down at her knees.

Rebekah purses her lips. "_Tragic_," she remarks. "You have my deepest sympathies."

Tyler doesn't respond. He looks down at his stomach where his skin is slowly stitching itself back together. He wishes it would go faster.

"Question number two," she says. "What's happening with you and the witch?"

His head snaps back up. So this is where they're going. "Her name is Bonnie," he says.

Rebekah looks slightly amused. "Noted. Now answer the question. Do I need to compel you?"

She doesn't. It's no secret. "I care about Bonnie, and she cares about me."

"In what way?" Rebekah asks with fake curiosity. She just wants to hear him say it, and hear him say it where Caroline can also hear.

"I-"

"_In what way?_"

Caroline isn't looking at him but Elena is. Since she can't speak she seems to be making up for it with staring.

"Romantically," Tyler sighs, fixing his gaze back on Rebekah who hasn't taken her eyes off him.

"She also _cares_ about Jeremy Gilbert, correct?"

He sucks down a breath. "Yes."

When Rebekah starts to laugh, Tyler balls his fists in impatience which makes the chains jingle. "I've heard stories about you three," she says. "Well, just _one_ story." Her smile has gotten even bigger.

By the time Elena's done, the whole town will know what happened at the bar.

"How does that work exactly?" Rebekah questions.

"It doesn't," Tyler says. "It was a one time thing."

"That's disappointing," she says. "I have one more question. Who killed April Young?"

"What do you care about April?" Tyler asks.

"She was a nice girl, I suppose, but I don't care about her at all," Rebekah says with a bored expression. "Even less so now that she's dead, but humor me. Who killed her?"

He's careful not to answer too quickly or too slowly. "Stefan."

Rebekah turns to look at Elena. "Well, doppelganger, do you believe him?" She doesn't answer and Rebekah rolls her eyes. "I'm speaking to you now," she snaps. "_Talk_. Do you believe him or not?"

"No," Elena says .

"And you Caroline?"

She doesn't speak.

"Even in death," Rebekah says with a breathy sigh, turning back to Tyler, "Stefan is _immaculate_. They think you did it. That you killed that poor girl."

"Why would I?" Because he's the hybrid, and the one with the teeth and the thirst. Bonnie is a witch and Jeremy is a hunter. They don't need to feed.

Rebekah shrugs her shoulders. "Why did you kill Stefan and Damon?"

"They deserved it."

"Did April?"

"Stefan killed April."

_It's true_, he tells himself. It's technically true. Maybe that's all he needs should Rebekah choose to compel him. Stefan's bite killed April, a bite that he bestowed on Bonnie, but his bite all the same. Stefan _did _kill April. Tyler just has to believe it. Bonnie didn't bite April. It was the bite that killed April. Stefan's bite. Stefan bit April.

Not Bonnie.

Not Bonnie.

Not Bonnie.

Rebekah steps a little closer and fixes him with her glassy stare. He steels himself for the compulsion. "_**Tell the truth, Tyler.**"_

Tyler swallows. _Not Bonnie. _

_"**Who killed-**_"

Rebekah stops short and turns, moving so quickly she's just a golden blur. The arrow she catches between her manicured fingernails is tipped with vervain. Tyler can smell it. He cranes his neck to look around her and sees Jeremy, reaching behind his back for another arrow.

"Well now it's a party," she says, breaking the arrow in two and dropping the pieces to the floor. She throws her knife and Tyler's heart seizes in his chest as it flies toward Jeremy. He moves in time to avoid it but Tyler sees where the blade embeds itself in the wall.

Rebekah is unconcerned with Jeremy's narrow escape. She turns back to Tyler and smiles a dark smile. "More fun for you."

_Don't ask again_, he thinks. _Don't ask again_.

She doesn't ask who killed April. That has been forgotten.

Instead, she says, "**_Turn_**."

Welcome to Mystic Falls, the moon is full tonight.

* * *

**This has been separated into two parts because it's super long. Jeremy's POV will return next update. And I know I said Matt would be in this one but he'll actually show in Part 2. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	12. Fun Times At Mystic Falls High Pt 2

**Thanks for reading/reviewing everyone!**

* * *

Fun Times at Mystic Falls High

Part Two

Rebekah pulls the chains away from Tyler's ankles and wrists so he drops to the floor. He can hear Caroline saying something but his ears are ringing and her voice sounds like he's underwater.

"Don't," she says. "Why would you make him do that? He hasn't done anything to you! He undaggered you!"

"Caroline, darling, you're doing that thing where you speak again," Rebekah says tiredly. "Stop it." She looks back to Jeremy. "As for you, if you let another one of those arrows fly, hunter, I'll take out Tyler's heart right here."

Tyler doesn't know if Jeremy lowered the crossbow. He must have because Rebekah makes a contented humming sound.

He can feel the change coming. At first it's barely more than a tingle, an electric hum in his bones. The pain isn't there yet, but it will be soon.

"Please," Tyler says feebly. He doesn't want to beg, but he remembers what changing was like. He remembers the breaking bones, the lack of control, the pain. "Rebekah, I-"

"Hush now," she says, leaning down and putting a finger to his lips. "It's nothing personal, Tyler, and I do appreciate the removal of that dagger. This isn't about you. It's about them." She wiggles her fingers in Caroline and Elena's direction. "It's all part of the game."

"Rebekah," he tries again, but she shakes her head slowly and he falls silent. She leans close to his ear and whispers even though Elena and Caroline can definitely hear. "I'd be careful of that doppelganger though. I suspect she's looking for _any_ excuse to put you down. Like a dog even."

Then she turns to Elena and Caroline. "And who knows? I may have given him his own reason to kill you both."

He wants to tell her shut up but he can't make his mouth move. If she's not going to undo this thing she's done the least she can do is stop talking.

"Goodnight, all," Rebekah says with a casual flip of her hair as she goes out the door.

Tyler watches her go and sinks to the floor. He puts both palms down and stares at the half-court line. It's so shiny he can see his face in it. The image is distorted and shadowy but it's there. The blurry face he looks at will soon belong to a wolf and he won't even realize it's his reflection. _  
_

"Tyler-" Caroline says. He sees her booted feet coming near him, but he doesn't look at her face. He sees Elena's feet, too, in plain black Converse. She hangs back a few more feet. Knowing what they've done, and knowing what Tyler is, she's not going to get any closer than she has to. Caroline, on the other hand... Maybe she's remembering the Tyler from before, the one who hadn't killed Stefan, the one who she was with through his first full moon, that poor, tragic Tyler who had no idea what he was getting into. They both knew it would be bad, but did either of them know it would be _this _bad?

"We have to go," Elena says even as Caroline hovers silently and awkwardly. If he reaches out, he can touch her, but he doesn't. "We have to hide somewhere, lock ourselves in." Caroline doesn't move and Elena takes her arm to turn her around. "_Caroline. _He could kill us."

It's true. He could kill them. One bite and they're both going to be very, very dead. And there's always the chance he may overpower them and rip them both to shreds. Caroline's face swims before him, bloody but still beautiful, even in death. She disappears behind a new image of himself, folded in on himself and screaming while his body is torn apart from within.

"I don't want the pain," he mutters.

This wasn't supposed to happen again.

_There's nothing wrong with not wanting to feel_ _pain_, Bonnie told him once. _Isn't that what everyone wants? Not to hurt?_

"Tyler," Caroline says, turning and taking a timid step toward him. He wishes he could hear what she's saying (she's saying _something)_ but all he can hear is his bones breaking. He can hear his spine snapping in two, his collarbone cracking, and the grind of his ribs as they slide against one another. He can hear it as if it's happening. They're not even there yet, and already he can feel it. It's worse somehow, knowing that it's coming. It's a full moon all over again, knowing the change is imminent, and being unable to stop it. He will be helpless. First the moon was his master and now it's an Original. Again.

_You're not a_ _coward_, Bonnie assured him._ You're the bravest guy I know_.

"You'll be okay," he says. He's immortal, after all. He'll be just fine. When this is over, he'll be whole again. It's the getting through it that's going to be hard. But he can get through it.

He tries to remember the last time he changed and he pulls at every detail he can. If he can just remember that, remember it as terribly as it was, he'll be ready for this time. It's always better. It gets progressively better each time. This time will hurt less than last time and it will go fast, faster than it's ever gone before. This changing will be the best change he's ever gone through. He survived all the others. He will survive this one, too.

He balls his hands into fists and rests his head against the cool wood of the floor. When he glances toward his hand, he sees the bracelet on his wrist. The shells and the black of the cord.

_You're the bravest guy I know._

* * *

Bonnie turns down the hallway and glimpses water spilling from underneath the door of the janitor's closet. She yanks the door open. Kol has a firm grip on the back of Shane's neck. He's coughing and sputtering while water drips from his face and air. He's so busy sucking down precious oxygen that he doesn't realize Bonnie has entered, and Kol is too busy wrenching a pipe from along the wall to notice her either. The pipe is moments from sliding through Shane's chest when Bonnie breaks Kol's spine.

The pipe falls to the floor with a clang as Kol hits the floor, howling in pain. Bonnie movies it with her magic, out of the Original vampire's reach.

"Witch," he says through gritted teeth.

"You can call me Bonnie," she says, wrapping her magic around his spine. She can almost feel the smooth ridges of the bone, broken and mending at a supernatural rate before she twists his spine again, provoking more screams from Kol.

"Lovely," he remarks, breathing hard. "I like a witch who knows how to handle herself."

"Then you're gonna love me," Bonnie says. She steps over him to extend a hand to Shane, who looks with wide eyes to Kol. The vampire's whole body is tensed with the pain and his fingers have curled into fists. "Shane, come on." It takes him a moment to catch on, but when he does, he takes her hand to pull himself to his feet. His shirt is soaked through and his dark hair sticks to his forehead in wet tendrils.

She maintains her hold on Kol's spine and breaks the few places that have managed to heal themselves. Twisting and turning at the bone, Kol is paralyzed. He only moves to scream and alternately laugh. Bonnie pulls Shane toward the door. "Are you okay?"

He nods his head vigorously and rakes a hand through his wet hair. Then he wipes it off on his pants like he didn't realize his hand would come away wet. "I'm fine. It's no big deal. I'm getting well acquainted with the Original family. It's kind of exciting."

"You know what's not exciting?" Bonnie says. "Being a corpse."

"I do know that," he says.

Bonnie releases Kol momentarily and she hears him exhale breathily. "I'll send you back to your office," she says to Shane, touching his shoulder lightly. She's never done this particular spell before. Sending him alone, without her to guide them, may leave Shane on the side of the road somewhere between Whitmore and the high school. Maybe she should just focus on getting him to the parking lot then she can drive him back later.

While she's thinking, Shane is wrenched away from her. Rebekah stands in the doorway, Shane's back to her chest, and her hand looking heavy and dangerous on his shoulder despite it's smallness. "Oh, but we didn't even get the chance to talk."

"Let him go and we'll talk."

"Well, it's not you I want to talk to," Rebekah says, "though you'll be important, I'm certain. Either way, stop torturing my brother and I will release your precious professor."

"I already did," Bonnie says. "He's just being a baby."

Rebekah smiles a bit at that. "Kol, you're making a bad impression."

Kol's laughter rings out even louder. With a grunt he pulls himself to his feet, and he attempts to speed toward Bonnie, to break her neck, to yell in her face or perhaps laugh instead. Instead he bounces against a transparent barrier she erects between them, humming with electrical energy. She looks at him over her shoulder and can't help smiling at his frustration.

Kol heaves a sigh against it, tapping his fingers along the invisible edge. "I do like you. It'll make killing you so bittersweet."

"I was thinking the same thing about you," Bonnie snaps. She turns back to Rebekah and raises her eyebrows expectantly. With a roll of her eyes, the Original releases Shane, shoving him forward a little so he stands closer to Bonnie. She extends the barrier into a bubble to protect them both.

"I have need of your professor," Rebekah says.

"You could have just _asked_ to see him," Bonnie says, "instead of kidnapping and torturing him." Not that she would have let that happen.

"That would have been much preferred," Shane puts in.

"There would have been no fun in that," Rebekah says. "I do apologize however. My brother lacks social grace."

"But I get the job done," Kol says. "Before we were so rudely interrupted, the professor was being quite forthcoming."

"Before you were rudely interrupted, you was about to _kill _him," Bonnie says. "Hence the torture."

Rebekah purses her lips in annoyance and points her eyes to the ceiling. "_Kol_. You weren't even going to let me speak with him first?"

"_Rebekah_," Kol counters impatiently. "He wants to raise _Silas_! I won't allow it! He will destroy this world and everything in it!"

Bonnie squints her eyes inquisitively, waiting for him to continue. An Original buying into the Silas and the end of earth legend? Rebekah, on the other hand, is even more annoyed. "It is a legend, brother. Mere _fiction_."

"He is a monster," Kol insists, "and if he is raised, we will live only long enough to see it proven true."

Shane lets out an amused sigh. "Silas has no interest in destroying this world."

"Then what _is_ he interested in?" Kol questions, cocking his head to the side.

"Silas will raise the dead."

Bonnie turns to him. "_He will_?"

Shane nods tersely. "According to some legends."

"Legends which are _not real_," Rebekah snaps, throwing up her hands. "You are both fools. Silas does not exist. He cannot _do_ anything."

"You better hope that's not true," Shane says. "As some say Silas is the one who can cure vampirism, a cure which you are apparently interested in finding." Rebekah folds her arms but doesn't speak. "And you can't find that cure without me."

"Yes, yes," Kol says, waving his hands around. "Without you, or the hunter, or the Bennett witch. I have no problem killing all of you."

Bonnie's beginning to remember why she leaves all the Original interaction to Elena and Caroline. They are equally infuriating and annoying. And trigger happy.

"Oh, there's a problem," Bonnie says. Nothing gets the message across clearer than a demonstration. Kol's pipe hovers in the air before it punches its way through his stomach, causing him to double over in pain.

Rebekah closes her eyes for a moment and forces a breath through her nose as Kol pulls the pipe from his body. "I will enjoy killing you, witch," he says.

"Let us be civil," his sister says tiredly. "No one needs to die tonight. Well, no one in this room at least."

Kol looks offended by the idea of letting anyone leave alive_,_ but Bonnie's stuck on Rebekah's "in this room" comment. There are lots of people outside this room. Tyler and Jeremy, Elena and Caroline.

"We can all work together," Rebekah continues. "You're seeking the cure. So am I. Let's help each other."

"What do you want the cure for?" Bonnie questions. Is is the same reason Elijah wanted it, whatever reason that was?

"That business is my own. Just know that I am intent on locating it and I will assist you in any way required. We can be partners, you and I."

"_Bekah_," Kol hisses, still holding the pipe in his hand. It bends and groans beneath his heavy hand. "Do not do this."

Rebekah ignores him. "Well, Bonnie? You're not too good for me. I'm sure you can file an alliance with me somewhere in that head of yours, perhaps in the same file where you stored your plans to murder Elena and Caroline's beloved Salvatores. I can get you where you need to go."

* * *

"You guys leave," Jeremy says, throwing his crossbow over his back and kneeling down next to Tyler. He's curled up on the floor still, his eyes stuck on the floor like no one else is there. Caroline hovers nearby, her fingers partly extended in Tyler's direction like she wants to touch him but doesn't know what that'll bring. "I'll stay with him."

Tyler's shaking his head but Jeremy ignores him.

"You can't," Elena says. "He won't know who you are. He could _kill_ you." She says it slowly, like he won't understand her otherwise.

"We'll be fine," Jeremy says, more impatiently than he'd intended. Elena looks equal parts stricken and annoyed, and she puts her hands on her hips in frustration. Caroline is still looking at Tyler, who is looking at no one. "Bonnie's here. She'll know what to do." He looks down at the tattered remains of Tyler's shirt, where the wounds are still visible.

"She used wolfsbane," Tyler says, noticing Jeremy's stare. "It's just taking a while. I'm okay."

He takes out his phone and punches a text to Bonnie, urging her to hurry.

"Just leave," Jeremy says, when Elena and Caroline still haven't gone.

"We can't," Elena sighs. "Rebekah compelled us to stay here until morning. In the building at least. We'll find a room to hide in. Come on, Caroline." She takes the other girl's arm and pulls her away and out the door.

"You should go," Tyler says. "Hide with them."

"I'm not gonna leave you here," Jeremy says, reaching to touch Tyler's shoulder. He can feel him shaking. "Just try to hang on until Bonnie gets here, okay? She'll help."

Tyler nods his head, but Jeremy can tell he doesn't believe him. "You should still go," he says. "If I turn I'll lose control. I'll hurt you if I can. You find Bonnie. I'll try to hold off." He trains his gaze back on the floor and Jeremy rises reluctantly to his feet. A look of grim satisfaction crosses Tyler's face. As Jeremy goes out the door he thinks he hears a bone breaking.

* * *

"You won't get me anywhere," Bonnie says. They don't need an Original to find the cure and keeping Rebekah around sounds like it'll cause more harm than good. Undaggering her got them nowhere but here.

Rebekah's full lips spread into a smile. "On the contrary. I will get you _somewhere_." She looks over Bonnie's shoulder at Kol and sighs. "May we speak privately?"

Bonnie turns to Shane and rests a hand on his shoulder. She really hopes she gets him to his office. "I'll call you later," she promises. She envisions his office as they left it, haphazardly messy and strewn with Shane-like crap. Then he's gone.

"Impressive," Rebekah remarks.

"Your brother is still here."

"Yes, and he will remain here," Kol snaps. "Rebekah, I am saving both of us with this."

"You are annoying me with this," she answers.

Kol shakes his head, like he can't believe this is actually happening. "Either way you can't believe a thing that professor has said to you."

"And why not?" Rebekah says dully.

Her brother shrugs his shoulders obnoxiously. "I don't know. You tell me if you would trust the word of an obsessed mad man and confessed killer."

Rebekah and Bonnie look at each other. It's the first time they've ever been on the same wavelength about anything. They're both very confused.

"What are you talking about?" Rebekah asks with a breathy sigh. She reminds Bonnie a lot of Elena at that moment with the way she talks to Jeremy sometimes, or the way she used to.

"He planned those killings," Kol says, "the ones you told me of, Bekah. The Pastor and his Council. Even the hybrids Niklaus so thoroughly dispatched."

"You're lying," Bonnie says.

"He told me himself," Kol assures her, "while we standing right here. Well, while _I _was standing and he was trying to keep me from drowning him. It's the truth. Your professor is just as much a killer as I. And you."

"Then why didn't you say something while he was _here_?" Rebekah demands angrily.

"I would have," Kol says, "if the witch hadn't sent him away."

Bonnie stares at the spot where Shane used to be, her head spinning. She _knows_ Shane. He's not a killer. He's a professor, a true believer disguised as an academic. He gushes over Original vampires, even when they're trying to kill him, but he doesn't kill people himself. He wouldn't. She knows he wouldn't.

This isn't the kind of information she wants to process in front of Rebekah and Kol.

"Bonnie."

All three of them turn to the door, seeing a frantic looking Jeremy holding his crossbow. "What's wrong?" Bonnie asks.

"_She_," he points to Rebekah, scowling, "compelled Tyler to turn. We gotta help him."

Bonnie glares at Rebekah who rolls her eyes and steps aside. "Do your best," she says. "We'll speak again soon."

If only they had a dagger. Or two.

Bonnie leaves Rebekah and Kol to follow Jeremy back to the gym. He's explaining how Tyler's freaking out but said he'd try to hold off on the transformation. It hasn't been too long, there's still a chance. She sorts through her memory of spells, trying to find one that may override an Original's compulsion. Maybe she could try to replace it with some compulsion of her own? But when they come into view of the gym doors, Jeremy's hand wraps around Bonnie's wrist to tug her backward. "Wait."

The gym is barely lit but they can still make out the shadow that slinks along the floor, a hulking mass of dark fur. When she reaches for the wolf with her magic, she brushes against an animal mind, one that will neither understand nor recognize her. Tyler isn't here. He doesn't seem to have realized Jeremy and Bonnie are so close, not yet at least. Once he does...

Jeremy's hold on her tightens. "We have to lock ourselves in somewhere. Now."

"We can go in there," Bonnie says.

"_With him_?"

"I can hold him off but we can't let him get out," she says. "What if he finds Elena and Caroline?" She moves her arm so she can interlace their fingers. "Come on."

She approaches the door slowly and wraps her fingers around the handle. Jeremy's close behind her as she steps inside. The wolf looks up as soon as they've entered. Even in the dark, she can make out the gold in its eyes. Its growl is loud. Is it her nerves or is it really that loud?

"Bonnie," Jeremy says warningly.

"I've got it." She maps the space around him, carving him out a generous rectangle of space. Fifteen feet of his own. She closes the magic around him. When he leaps forward, the nails of his paws scraping against the floor, he slams against it. There's barely a moment of stunned confusion before he's back to ramming against it, clawing at the walls, and snapping his teeth.

"Is that hurting him?" Jeremy asks.

"No," she says. "It's like rubber. Maybe he'll tire himself out and stop."

It's an empty hope. They perch on the bleachers together, purposely avoiding looking at the droplets of blood and the tattered heap of Tyler's clothes while the wolf rages inside his box. He never seems to get tired, only angry. If the walls of that box were visible, they'd be able to see them shaking.

"How long will this last?" Jeremy asks when the second hour has come and gone.

"I don't know," Bonnie answers. "Until morning?"

Jeremy sets his crossbow down.

She considers telling him what Kol said about Shane, but she can't make herself care about it. It's still there, urgent and pressing at the back of her mind but she can't do anything but look at the wolf in front of her. It's Tyler, broken down to animal instinct. She wonders what they look like to him. When the wolf finally stops attacking the barrier, he walks along its edge and sniffs around for a breach. He never finds one but he walks and walks and walks.

Elena and Caroline are in the library. Bonnie can sense them, and she thinks about reaching for them, telling them to come to the gym where they can all be together, but they won't want to be with them so she doesn't.

None of them sleeps.

Bonnie rests her head on Jeremy's shoulder and they watch the wolf go. They only know dawn has arrived when the wolf lets out a high pitched whine. It doesn't seem so scary or as big as it slumps onto the floor. Its body shifts and elongates, fur gives way to skin, claws shorten into nails that are on hands instead of paws. Jeremy and Bonnie go to him together as she lets the cage dissipate. Tyler's curled into a ball, his back to them, naked and shaking.

Jeremy takes off his jacket and throws it over Tyler's lower half while Bonnie kneels at his side and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. She expects him to be warm, the way he's trembling, but dead things don't feel warm. He's still cold.

"Tyler," she says. "Are you okay?"

He nods but she can't see his face and he's not talking.

Jeremy shoots Bonnie a somber look. "I'm gonna find you some clothes, Ty. I'll be right back."

As Jeremy goes, Tyler's hand comes up to fold around hers. He pulls it to his chest. "Tyler," she says, using her other hand to push his hair away from his forehead. "I'm so sorry I didn't get here in time."

Maybe she wouldn't have been able to do anything but she wishes she'd been able to try. He shouldn't have had to turn if he didn't want to.

"When Jeremy gets back we'll go home," she promises, as if he'll feel better as soon as he's back at her house. "You can rest."

Tyler nods his head. She feels something wet drop onto her hand. Tears. He's crying.

* * *

Jeremy finds a clean t-shirt and shorts in the locker room but unless Tyler's shoes are still intact, he'll be going home barefoot. That seems like a shitty way to end an already terrible night so Jeremy starts looking around for a pair of shoes, _any _pair of shoes.

"Jeremy."

He spins around, pulling the gun from the waistband of his jeans to level it at Kol's chest. He hasn't changed a bit since Denver, still smug and aloof. He used to like that about Kol. Nothing fazed him and in Denver, nothing fazed Jeremy either. At least one of them hasn't been changed, but after a few hundred years maybe a person becomes incapable of change.

Kol quirks an eyebrow in amusement. "Put that away before you hurt yourself."

"Why are you still here?" Jeremy demands.

"I haven't been here this whole time," Kol says in a _duh_ kind of voice. "I have a life, you know. I came back to talk to you."

"For what?"

"We were friends once were we not?"

"We were not."

Friends don't sit around awaiting orders to kill friends.

"Fine," Kol allows. "But consider this a _friendly_ warning: You should stop looking for Silas."

"We're not," Jeremy tells him. "We're looking for a cure."

"That is buried _with_ Silas," Kol says icily. He takes a menacing step forward and Jeremy tightens his hold on the gun. He can probably get a couple bullets into his chest. At least one will puncture the heart and slow him down long enough for Jeremy to get back to Bonnie and Tyler. "And Silas will bring this world to its knees."

"Paranoid much?"

Kol rolls his eyes in annoyance. "You're not paranoid enough. Your youth makes you stupid. Long story short, you three back off or I will make you. Do you understand me, Jeremy? Call me sentimental but I don't want to kill you if I don't have to. I used to find you so..._amusing_. As one does a pet."

"That's sweet," Jeremy says.

Kol grins. "I don't repeat myself. You get one chance and one chance only. You call off this insanity and I let you live. You, your girlfriend and her other boyfriend. I can be generous." He's practically patting himself on the back as he turns and leaves the room, without sparing Jeremy a second glance. After he's turned the corner, Jeremy drops his arm back to his side. He keeps a hold on the gun as he carries the clothes back into the gym.

* * *

The three of them are walking back out to the parking lot when they find Elena, Caroline and Matt gathered in front of Matt's truck. He doesn't look surprised to see them. "Hey," he says.

"Hey," Jeremy says, squinting against the rising sun. "What are you doing here?"

"Elena called me earlier," Matt said, "and told me what was going on. I wanted to make sure you guys were all okay." His blue eyes float over Tyler in the slightly too small shorts and too big t-shirt. "_Are _you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tyler says brusquely. "I just wanna go."

They all do. It's the first time they've all been together since they broke the news and now it's as if they've never met each other before. Jeremy tries to meet Elena's eyes but she seems to be purposely avoiding him. In the light of the sun it's like nothing happened in there. Whatever concern they'd managed to scrounge up for each other has disappeared with the sun's rising._  
_

"Then let's do that," Elena says, turning and walking toward her car. It's parked on the other side of the lot, near the east entrance. Caroline's is nearby. She follows after her without another word, but Matt lingers.

"We didn't hear from you guys all weekend," he says, like he's expecting some kind of explanation for it.

"We didn't hear from you either," Jeremy points out.

"Yeah." Matt nods his head slowly and focuses his gaze on the ground. "I'm glad you guys are okay." He gets back into his truck. The engine roars to life next to them but he doesn't drive off not even after Elena and Caroline both have. Instead he rolls down the window and opens his mouth to speak but the words don't come. "I don't know what to say," he admits.

Tyler sighs and starts walking toward his car.

"It's been a long night," Bonnie says, looking after him. "We'll talk later."

Matt looks disappointed but resigned as Bonnie heads toward her car.

"See you," Jeremy says before going toward Tyler's car. It was an unspoken decision for him to ride with Tyler. They're not going to leave him alone. When he gets in, Tyler is quiet and the radio isn't on.

"Thanks for the clothes," Tyler says.

Jeremy's surprised to hear his voice. He hasn't heard him speak since before he turned. When the surprise wears off he says, "You're welcome."

* * *

When Tyler gets out of the shower, Bonnie's sitting on her dad's bed waiting for him. "Hi," she says with a weak smile.

"Hey," he responds as he makes sure the towel around his waist is secure. "I thought you were going to sleep." Jeremy didn't waste any time. He collapsed on the sofa as soon as they came in despite his assertions he'd stay awake.

"I am," she says. "I just wanted to check on you first."

"I'm okay," he says. It's easier to believe that once the pain has faded. He's fine. Like he knew he would be. He's whole again, like he knew he would be. He was brave, like he told himself to be. Still, it hurts.

Bonnie must be able to tell he doesn't want to talk because she stands. "Okay," she says, wiping her hands off on her jeans. "Well, I'll let you rest." She's going out the door but he doesn't want her to leave. He doesn't want to be alone, not really. He just wants her to stay there with him in the quiet and stroke his hair like she did in the gym.

"I lost it," he says.

She turns around. "Lost what?"

He holds up his arm. For a minute she looks confused but then her expression softens as she reaches for his wrist and wraps her fingers around it. Her hand is so small her fingers can't encircle it completely. "I can give you another ugly bracelet," she assures him.

"It won't be the same."

He feels naked without it.

"It's in the gym somewhere," she says. "We'll find it."

If it wasn't broken into tiny pieces during the change that is.

"Tyler," she says.

"Hmm?"

She's still holding his wrist when she lifts herself onto her toes to kiss him. He's tired - so very, very tired - and he thinks he can taste the wolf on his tongue but he can taste her, too. He likes her better, and kissing Bonnie makes him feel as awake as he's ever been.

"Is this a pity kiss?" he asks. He can't make himself mind either way.

"No," she answers. She lets go of his wrist to put her arms around his neck instead. "It's a it's-been-a-long-night-and-I-thought-kissing-you-might-make-it-better-for-both-of-us kiss."

Well, that's a lot better than a pity kiss.

"Did something else happen?" he asks. He doesn't know what it was, or if it was Rebekah or Kol that did it, but something else happened tonight. For some reason Bonnie doesn't want to say what.

She smiles a little but she doesn't answer.

"Did it make it better?"

"Not yet," she says. When she kisses him again, he doesn't taste anything but her. He tells himself to forget the wolf and the gym and everything he can't remember anyway. Instead he focuses on her hands sliding through his damp hair and her tongue tangling with his. He listens to her intake of breath as he slides his hands around her waist and pulls her in closer. He wants her everywhere, on top of him, below him, wrapped around him, inside of him. He wants her to be _with_ him. All he wants is Bonnie with her fingers and her mouth and her breathing and her magical human heart that beats and beats and beats. He will take her over the wolf any day.

She breaks the kiss first, and he feels like he's falling as his lips chase after hers.

"Come on," she says, holding out her hand. "You can sleep with me."


	13. Allies

Allies

Tyler wakes up in the middle of the night. At first he's startled, thinking something must have woken him. He listens and takes in the silence of the house. It's a loud kind of silence, and it's loud only to him. There's the rattle of the heater, turned down low; the hum of the refrigerator; Jeremy's snores; and Bonnie's breathing. When he turns to look at her, she's awake. He can make out her eyes in the dark, staring at him. She must realize he's awake, too, because she touches his face with the tips of her fingers and slides closer to him, her bare feet brushing against his. She's so warm.

"Bonnie," he says.

He hasn't kissed her since they got into her room, even though he wanted to, even though as soon as they got into bed together (after he put on a pair of pants) he wanted to touch her. He hasn't kissed her but he's never wanted to do something more in his life. But she got under the covers and pulled him with her, wrapping her arms around him and whispering goodnight, and he didn't want to ruin it.

But now he wants to kiss her even more than he did then, and his desire only intensifies as her fingers travel from his cheek to his nose and then trace along his mouth. He hears her breath hitch as his tongue flicks out to taste the tip of her finger. He closes the already small space between them and sets his hand on her waist. Her tank top has ridden up and all he touches is bare skin.

"Yeah?" she says, barely whispering.

He doesn't have anything to tell her, nothing he can form with words anyway. Maybe she realizes that because she smiles as she withdraws her fingers and replaces them with her lips.

He'll never get tired of kissing her, of her kissing him. He'll never get tired of Bonnie at all.

Now he knows how she likes to be kissed: fully and passionately. She won't be satisfied with anything less than everything he has to give, written with his lips and his tongue across her lips and her tongue. When her hands cup his face and pull him against her, he curls his fingers in her hair. She likes when his tongue gets involved. She loves that, though he's not sure what it is she likes so much. Whatever it is, he does it, and he could stay there in her quiet sighs of contentment and little moans forever.

He knows how she likes to kiss him. She likes to know he's there, and she likes to feel his body beneath her hands where its solid, cold and humming for her. He's glad he didn't put a shirt on, especially if it means she can touch him better. He rolls just enough that she's above him, so he can run his hands across her back and feel the curve of her spine.

Tyler doesn't know how long they kiss or what time it is when they finally stop, but he's achingly hard when they do. Bonnie's cheek is resting on his chest and her arm is throw around his waist, so low he thinks his erection must be obvious but it must not be. When she falls asleep, he listens to her breathing and her heart beating in time with his own. He counts as he strokes her hair until he closes his eyes and follows her into oblivion.

* * *

When Bonnie goes downstairs in the morning, Jeremy is still asleep on the couch. Upstairs Tyler is also still asleep. She sits at Jeremy's feet on the couch and touches his hand, dragging a finger along his Mark. With a jump he awakens, relaxing only when he realizes it's her. "Bonnie," he says with a light laugh, "you scared the hell outta me."

"Sorry. How'd you sleep?"

"Good," he says. "You?"

She told him last night she was going to ask Tyler to sleep in her room. She didn't want him to be alone. Jeremy had said it was fine, that he didn't mind, that Bonnie was allowed to do whatever she wanted to do with either of them. She could have sex with Tyler if she wanted to and Jeremy wouldn't mind, but she keeps waiting for him to. She keeps waiting for one of them to mind but neither ever does. She expected Tyler to mind when she told him she was in love with Jeremy, but he didn't, they don't, and she's starting not to.

"Good."

Jeremy sits up. "Is Tyler okay?"

"I think so."

Her mind is back in that janitor's closet with Kol, Rebekah and Shane. Shane, who is a killer. _Like me_, she thinks. _Or not like me. I'm not like him_. Shane, who has been lying since the day she met him. Shane, who knew something about Tyler's pack and Pastor Young. Shane, Shane, Shane.

"Jeremy?"

She trusted Shane and she was wrong. So very, very wrong. She's not wrong about trusting Jeremy or Tyler. That she knows in her gut. They will never betray her. If there were ever two people in the world Bonnie is totally, completely right about, it's them.

"Hmm?"

She leans to kiss him and is surprised when it seems like he's surprised. When she pulls away Jeremy smiles shyly down at his lap. "What was that for?"

Because he's cute? Because Shane is a murderer and she knows Jeremy isn't? Because she loves Jeremy and knows he loves her? "I don't know."

The doorbell rings.

Bonnie goes to answer it, peeking through the tiny window. All she needs is the glimpse of straight blond hair and she sighs to herself. "Good morning, darling," Rebekah says cheerily.

"What do you want?" Bonnie asks, leaning against the door frame and folding her arms. She's had enough of Originals to last her several lifetimes.

"I've come to discuss our arrangement," Rebekah answers. She looks larger than life on Bonnie's porch. She could break it apart easily, if not for the protective spells Bonnie's placed on the house.

"We don't have one."

"Exactly. May I come in?"

Bonnie almost laughs and then she does when Rebekah's answering smile tells her the request was a joke. "No," she says, "but I'll come out." She steps purposefully over the threshold, closing the door behind her, and Rebekah's smile widens. When Bonnie sits down on the steps, the Original joins her. She's much taller and she has to stretch her legs down to the last step to sit comfortably.

"How's Tyler?"

"Fine," Bonnie replies, "no thanks to you."

Rebekah sighs breathily. "Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. It was necessary."

"No, it wasn't."

"It wasn't," she admits. "But it was fun. It's a shame he didn't manage to bite one of your other friends. Tragic, really."

"This isn't really appealing a partnership to me, Rebekah," Bonnie tells her. "You'll have to do better than this. Way better."

"Kol is going to kill you," Rebekah says, turning her head so her long, blond locks brush over Bonnie's shoulder. She didn't realize Rebekah was sitting so close to her. "And your boyfriends unless you quit looking for the cure."

Bonnie purses her lips. "And?"

"And I can keep him under control," Rebekah says certainly. "If you help me, I'll help you."

Rebekah being helpful seems like a very foreign concept.

"Why do you want the cure?" Bonnie asks. "Tell the truth."

Rebekah narrows her eyes and turns her head to look out at the street.

"Do you want to be human?"

Rebekah lets out a throaty laugh. "Of course not. We both know what happens to humans, don't we? They're weaklings."

"I'm human."

"You're a witch," Rebekah corrects her. "And a powerful one. _You_ are strong. Humans are not."

"Is that why you liked Matt so much?" Bonnie asks, raising her eyebrow. "Because he's weak?"

"Nostalgia," Rebekah sighs, waving it off with her hands. "And his eyes are so very blue. How's a girl to resist?"

"So why do you want the cure?"

Rebekah slides a little closer to her and Bonnie fights the urge to put more space between them. Doing so might make her think Bonnie's afraid of her. "Why did Elijah want it?"

"To use on Klaus," Bonnie answers.

"I know my brothers," Rebekah says. "Elijah wanted the cure so he _could_ make Niklaus human, but only if he chose to. Elijah wanted a threat, but I want a certainty. Klaus will live the rest of his relatively short life as a werewolf. With that cure, we'll all get what we want. You can cure your dull little doppelganger friend, and I will never have to exist under the thumb of Niklaus again. You won't be able to find it with Kol trying to rip your heads off every other minute. I know he seems a bit haphazard, but he's actually quite dogged when he wants someone dead. It's a family trait. I can give you some semblance of freedom."

It's a good deal. They don't have the dagger necessary to squash this Kol problem, and they're not strong enough to beat back an Original vampire every time he comes for them, not while they're searching for the cure and not while she's figuring out this thing with Shane. They'll stretch themselves thin and it'll get one or all of them killed. Rebekah wants what they want. If Klaus is cured, they're free to kill him. Then again, she doesn't need to know that particular part of the plan.

"Stay here," Bonnie says, rising to her feet. "I have to ask Tyler and Jeremy."

Rebekah looks annoyed that Bonnie won't make the call on her own but she remains on the steps as Bonnie returns to the house. Jeremy has been joined by Tyler, still shirtless but alert. They've obviously been listening which is good because Bonnie doesn't feel like repeating everything Rebekah's told her.

"Well?" she asks, doing a quick spell to silence the house. Rebekah is probably nosier than they are. "What do you think?"

"She's right," Jeremy says. "Kol's going to come after us. Without the daggers or even the white oak stake, we can't do anything about it. If she can, we should let her."

Tyler isn't as quick with his thoughts. He leans against the counter to think.

"If you don't want to," Bonnie says, "we'll find another way to deal with Kol." Rebekah made him relive one of the worst things that has ever happened to him. Tyler not wanting anything to do with her wouldn't be unusual, and they wouldn't blame him for it.

"This is the best way," Tyler says finally though he's not happy about it. He smiles weakly when Bonnie touches his shoulder but it gets a bit stronger when she kisses his cheek.

"I'll tell her."

Rebekah is still sitting on the steps when Bonnie returns. "So, what's the verdict?" she asks. Maybe she expects a positive answer, maybe she knows they have no real hope of stopping Kol permanently.

"If we do this," Bonnie says, standing next to her so Rebekah has to look up, "no repeats of last night. You leave Elena and Caroline alone."

"I find it hard to believe you're very interested in their well-being," Rebekah comments, raising an eyebrow. Bonnie's answering glare must amuse her because she smiles. "Very well. I'll let your supposed friends be."

"And you apologize to Tyler," Bonnie adds.

Her amusement turns to annoyance. "Really?"

"Really," Bonnie says, mimicking her accent. "You do that and we'll all get what we want, right?"

Rebekah presses her lips together and rolls her eyes. "Fine," she hisses. "Bring him out here."

Tyler comes without being called and he stands in the door, looking expectantly to Rebekah. The Original hoists herself and shoots him a tight smile. "All out of shirts, I see," she comments. When Bonnie shoots her a withering glare Rebekah grows serious. "I'm sorry, Tyler," she says. "I regret my decision to force you to turn. It was unnecessary and cruel. Satisfied, dears?"

"In the least possible way," Tyler answers.

"Well, it's the thought that counts," Rebekah says. "Now what will we do about your murderous professor?"

Tyler looks to Bonnie, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh dear," Rebekah comments. "I see you haven't gotten around to sharing that information with your paramours. I'll leave you to it. Call if you need me." She speeds down the street, turning into nothing more than a blond blur, and Bonnie sighs after her. Rebekah's going to be exhausting, she can already tell.

"Bonnie," Tyler says, "what was she talking about?"

She takes Tyler's hand to pull him back into the house so she can explain to him and Jeremy. She's tired just thinking about it.

* * *

Shane's in class when Bonnie arrives at his office. Tyler and Jeremy wanted to come with her, but she refused. She can handle Shane just fine on her own. Besides, he seems like he's her problem.

"Bonnie?" Shane says as he comes through his door. He looks happy to see her, _so_ happy to see her. He's always looked that way when she's come by, and now she wonders how much of it was genuine. Shane has always been open to her being there, and he's become a constant in her life. Like Jeremy or Tyler. Shane helped her when no one else could. He got her magic back on track and taught her Expression, magic that saved Tyler's life and saved hers. "Come to check on me?"

"Not really," she answers though it's probably a good thing Kol hasn't gotten around to killing him yet. "I came to talk to you." She realizes now she has no idea what to say to him. There are questions she needs to know the answers to but she doesn't know what she'll do once she gets them, if they're not what she wants.

Some of it must be true. Why would Kol lie, when Bonnie could easily find out the truth? Shane got the Council killed and somehow made sure Tyler's pack would die, too. But how did he do all this? And how did she not know it?

"Okay," Shane says slowly. Maybe he caught that something's wrong. He sits at his desk and folds his hands. "What about?"

"Did you kill Pastor Young and the Council members?" Bonnie asks. It's better to just get it all out there.

The smile melts from Shane's face. He opens and closes his mouth and looks down at his desk.

"Shane?"

He looks up at her and frowns. Gesturing to the chair in front of his desk, he says, "Sit down, Bonnie."

"I'll stand."

He nods and takes a deep, calming breath. "I didn't kill them."

"Not yourself," Bonnie snaps. "But somehow you made Pastor Young do it."

"He believed in the cause."

"What cause?"

"Silas."

"So now he's a _cause_?"

First Silas is a witch now he may be a vampire but he can surely raise the dead and he's also a _cause_. Shane's lost it, his mind, his sense and anything else that he could have lost. It's all gone.

"Silas is powerful," Shane says. "And his followers-"

"_Followers_?"

"Pastor Young believed in Silas and all that he could accomplish," Shane says. "He chose to make the necessary sacrifice."

"Did the other eleven people who died also choose to make that sacrifice?" Bonnie demands.

Shane falls silent and Bonnie knows no one made a choice but him and Pastor Young. "We've been waiting so long for this," he says. "And now it's finally going to happen. Silas can rise if you help him!"

"But why did people have to die?" Bonnie questions. "I don't understand why people had to die. Why did the hybrids have to die?"

"I didn't kill the hybrids," Shane says. "Klaus did. I had nothing to do with it. It was a...happy coincidence."

Bonnie steps closer to his desk. "It was a _what_?"

Tyler sobbed over the hybrids' dead bodies and dreamed of them every night before burying them on the Lockwood property. She can still smell the death and the the cold earth. And Tyler was on her bed, as good as dead if not for the flimsy bracelet she forced him to wear, one that he lost last night. There was nothing _happy_ about what happened to those hybrids.

"What I mean is-"

Shane is cut off by a sharp, breaking sound. They both look to the window behind his desk where a spidery crack has appeared.

"Bonnie," Shane says as he turns back around, "calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down."

Shane nods his head, extending his hands with his palms upward. She read somewhere that's supposed to be a sign of submission or kindness or something like that. She doesn't buy it. "I overheard Klaus and Stefan when they were talking about it. That's all. They were here, asking about the cure. I didn't plan any of it."

"But you knew Klaus was going to kill them?"

"Yes," Shane says. "I did but-"

"And you didn't tell me? Tyler could have died! His friends _did_ die!"

The crack in the window spreads further. A small chip of glass falls to the floor.

"But he didn't," he says. "If he had those deaths wouldn't have counted anyway. The number is very specific. Twelve. No more and no less. If he'd truly died-"

For a moment she forgets Shane is human and she latches on to his bones, the way she did with Elijah and Kol. She focuses on his stupid, submissive hands and squeezes. His howl of pain is like music to her ears, but she lets him go soon after. His broken hands won't be of use to her.

"Bonnie," Shane says, staring down at his hands with wide eyes. He bends his fingers cautiously. When he sees she hasn't done him any serious harm, he says, "Silas will bring them all back. It doesn't matter, not in the end. Those hybrids your friend lost will be returned to him!"

"Shane," Bonnie says, "you're out of your mind. You don't even know what Silas is!"

"I know what he can _do_," Shane insists. "And he _can_ bring back the dead. Including your grandmother."

Sheila Bennett's face swims in front of Bonnie's face. She can see her smile, hear her voice. She remembers thinking all Sheila's witch ramblings were the product boxes of wine and old age. She didn't believe her, not soon enough. In the beginning, Shane reminded her of Sheila with his babblings about magic and spirits and Expression. He loved it like Sheila had, and he wanted Bonnie to know everything he had to teach. When Sheila taught her, when she had tried to, Bonnie hadn't been listening. She made sure not to make that same mistake again.

"Don't talk about my Grams, Shane," Bonnie says. "Don't _ever_ talk about her."

He's not even worthy of knowing her Grams, much less being able to speak about her.

"Bonnie-"

"If you want to talk," she hisses, "you can start by telling me everything I need to know about this Expression triangle. And you should be glad I need you for this cure because if I didn't..."

Shane at least has the sense of mind to look alarmed.

* * *

Jeremy waits in Bonnie's room for her to come out of the shower. The bed is neatly made and his mind travels to what happened in it last night. He's certain it wasn't G-rated, but if Bonnie planned on having sex with Tyler she would have told him. She was very specific about what she intended to happen last night. _We're just going to sleep_, she told him. She was nervous when she asked, worried he'd be jealous or angry or both. He wasn't. He keeps thinking he should be. Jealousy is a normal reaction. When the girl you're in love with shares her bed with another guy, you're supposed to be jealous. You're _allowed_ to be jealous.

Bonnie comes in wrapped in a towel. "Hey," she says, barely blinking at his presence.

"Hi."

She goes to her mirror and starts combing her fingers through her hair. "I guess your talk with Shane didn't go well," he says.

"He admitted to everything."

"Asshole," Jeremy remarks. Jeremy's interaction with Shane has been limited to when Bonnie's there or when Bonnie's telling them something he said or showing them something he gave her. He remembers not liking him because he gave Bonnie that necklace. That reasoning is stupid when this one is put out there for consumption. _  
_

"There's an understatement."

"Why did he do it?"

"He needs to do it to get Silas to raise the dead," Bonnie says, "or that's what he thinks will happen but he actually doesn't know because he's relying on all these ancient texts that say all these different things and he's just _hoping_ one of them is right." She pulls her hair back into a ponytail as she paces her room. She may have been looking for something at first but now she's forgotten. She sits down next to Jeremy instead.

"Why does he want Silas to raise the dead?" Jeremy asks.

"Because his wife died," Bonnie answers. "She was a witch and she died and now he wants her back."

Well, he supposes there are _worse_ reasons for wanting some mystical witch/vampire/something to be awoken.

"He says he needs to complete something called an Expression Triangle," Bonnie says, "to make it possible for Silas to raise them. He needs three kills of twelve. First the Council members then the hybrids." She buries her face in her hands and lets out an aggravated groan. "He called it a 'happy coincidence' that they died. He didn't even have to do anything to make that one happen. It just fell into his lap."

Tyler, his hybrids, Klaus, Stefan, all bundled up and conveniently placed on the board called Mystic Falls for a slaughter. And they all played their parts perfectly.

"There's still one more," Jeremy says.

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "He assures me there's some time before the next one has to take place so we should just sit tight until then."

"Did he actually say 'sit tight'?"

Bonnie nods glumly.

"I never liked him," Jeremy says.

He reaches for Bonnie's hand and folds it up in his, and he's surprised to realize she's shaking. "Everything's such a mess," she says. "I've spoken more to Rebekah in the past couple of days than I have Caroline and Elena, and Shane's lost it - if he ever had it. When I told Shane what we did, I thought about how he was my friend and how he understood in a way Caroline, Elena and Matt didn't. And now I think he only understood because he's killed people, too. He just thinks they'll come back."

"The others will come around," Jeremy says, as if he knows that for sure. He can't tell who will be first, Matt or Caroline. But one of them will. Elena is harder and even though Jeremy told himself he'd try to talk to her today, especially after last night, he couldn't make himself call her.

"I thought Shane was on my side," Bonnie says, turning to look at him. "He was so happy to help me, and he _did_ help me. I'm stronger because of him. I know more than I've ever known because he taught me but _why_ did he teach me? For this. Only a Bennett witch can raise Sila, and he's been grooming me for this thing since the moment I met him. I didn't even realize it was happening."

She pulls away from him and her hand slips from his hold as she starts sifting through her drawers. She pulls out some clothes and changes right in front of him. He supposes it doesn't really matter. He's seen her naked plenty of times, but he still tries not to look too plainly. When she's in a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, she rejoins him on the bed. She keeps talking right where she left off.

"When I first started seeing him," she says, "he kept telling me how powerful I was. I hadn't felt powerful like he said I was since the witches in the house gave me their power. I felt weaker when I met Shane and now I know he was right. I _am_ powerful."

"You are," Jeremy agrees.

"And he looked at me like I was," she says, "even before I realized it. And I feel like I should have been able to see through that. I got caught up in it."

"Bonnie-"

"I should have noticed something was going on," she continues. "But I liked it, someone telling me how great I am. No one had done that since..." Her voice trails off and she starts playing with her fingers. "Since you. You thought I was great."

He always feels a pang of guilt when he thinks about what they used to be.

"I still do," he says. "Shane might be out of his mind, but he's not wrong about that. And there's nothing wrong with you knowing how...amazing you are and liking it when someone tells you. You didn't miss what kind of person was because you wanted an ego boost. You missed it because he wanted you to. He's a liar. Liars lie and Shane was really good at it. But he never lied about you."

Jeremy leans to press a kiss to her cheek but she turns to catch his lips instead. He smiles against her mouth because he knows it was on purpose. She takes his hand again and pulls him with her back further onto the bed so they can lean against her pillows. For awhile they're both quiet.

"Fuck Shane," he says finally. "I'm your friend. Tyler's your friend. _ Fuck Shane. _We won't need him much longer. Once we get the cure, we can hand him over to the police."

She rolls toward him and rests her head on his chest. "What if the cure's not real? We've been listening to Shane this whole time and he might not be all there so...what if it doesn't even exist?"

If they can't kill Klaus, then what do they do?

Jeremy doesn't have an answer. Neither of them comes up with one before they fall asleep right where they are.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! **


	14. The Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans

They finally go back to school on Wednesday where people are still talking about the vandals that had a bit of fun with the gym on Monday night. The administration is pissed and is talking about installing video cameras throughout the school now. Bonnie doesn't see Tyler until lunch where they sit together at a table in the corner, and they try not to look toward Elena, Caroline, and Matt who are seated at their usual table which now seems miles away from them.

Tyler talks more than she does, about nothing in particular. They can't talk about what they're both thinking of, not here at least, and school is trivial in comparison to everything else. But they have less than a semester to go before they can both kiss this place goodbye. It's probably better not to let it go to waste.

"I can't concentrate on anything," Bonnie says, putting her forehead in her hand. She keeps thinking of Shane who's called her three times already today. When she's not thinking of Shane, she's thinking Silas. When she's not thinking of Silas, she's thinking of Rebekah, off somewhere keeping Kol in line. Whatever she's doing is working thus far. He hasn't bothered them since the other night, and she's grateful for that reprieve at least.

"Me either," Tyler says. He reaches for her free hand with one of his but he stops halfway and curls his fingers into a fist. Bonnie bends her extended fingers and folds her arms across her chest.

It's not the place for touching, not with Elena, Caroline and Matt across the room. Bonnie fights the urge to look back at them and see if they're looking. If they're not, what's the harm in one touch? When she looks up to Tyler she sees that he's already looking at them. "Come on," he says.

"Where?" Bonnie asks but she's already grabbing her bag and standing up to follow him to the trashcan.

"Just come with me." They dump their trays and Tyler leads her into the hall. It's empty for now, in the middle of this period, so Bonnie allows her hand to brush against his as they walk. For a brief moment, barely a millisecond, his pinky finger wraps around hers. When he lets her go, it's to open the door to the library.

It's similarly deserted, but there are still a couple of people around. They bypass them to go into one of the study rooms where Tyler closes and locks the door and tosses his backpack onto the table

"What are we doing?" Bonnie asks, sitting on top of the table.

"Being alone," Tyler answers. He takes a step closer to her, touching her knees and easing her legs apart so he can stand between them. When his hands touch her face, she closes her eyes and inhales. His fingers brush her neck and run in small circles as he rests his forehead against hers.

"Shane called you, didn't he?"

"I didn't answer," she tells him, her eyes still closed. "But he left a message."

Tyler's hands fall to her waist. "What did he say?"

"More of the same," she answers, opening her eyes and finding herself staring directly into his. So brown. "I'll get my Grams back at the end of this, if I let him do this." She wraps her arms around his neck before she speaks again. "You could have Hayley and your pack."

Tyler drops his gaze to the space between them and his hands tighten on her waist. "At what cost?"

"No cost," Bonnie says, "if we believe Shane. If all the dead can come back, then why not?"

Because other people have to die to do it. The deaths of his pack, those twelve hybrids who he loved, added to some sick sacrificial triangle that may not even be real.

"Shane's..."

"Not in his right mind," Bonnie finishes. "I know. I kinda wish he was." If she could see her Grams again, she would do it in a heartbeat. If people didn't have to be sacrificed, she'd do it. What reason would she have to not?

"Me too," he says.

Her hands slide down to grip the front of his shirt where she fiddles with one of the buttons. He looks nice today, really nice in his polo and jeans. He'd look nicer out of them though. As the thought hits her, she slides her hand beneath his shirt to feel the coolness of his chest, skating across a nipple to rest there where his heart beats.

"I want..." she says, searching for the words. How can she say it without it sounding awkward or terrible or both?

"You want what?" Tyler prompts.

"You," she says.

Tyler laughs a little and she feels the urge to kiss his dimpled cheek. So she does, and Tyler turns his head to catch her mouth. She doesn't know if he knows what she means by that.

"I wanted to the other night," she says between kisses. She draws her hand from underneath his shirt and runs her fingers through his hair instead. He's got good hair.

He arches an eyebrow and pulls away from her. If he didn't understand before, he gets it now. He tilts his head to the feel of her fingers. "So why didn't we?"

"I didn't want to with Jeremy in the house," she says. "I don't want him to hear us. I mean, I know _we _did that but that was before all this happened. I think we should be alone, you know?"

Jeremy may not mind them kissing in front of him, or the two of them sharing a bed upstairs but what if he minds knowing they're having sex in that bed?

"We can go to my house," Tyler suggests. He's whispering in that way they've started doing when they're alone, when they're talking about them.

"Tonight?" she asks.

At first she thinks it may be too soon. Maybe they should wait until the end of the week or something, but a slow smile spreads across Tyler's face, and he nods. "Tonight. We can make a thing of it. I'll get food and stuff. It'll be..._romantic."_

Bonnie has never associated Tyler Lockwood with romance. She tries to picture him strewing rose petals across a giant bed, lighting candles placed strategically throughout the room, soft music playing in the background. Is that possible on such short notice?

"I can deal with that," she says playfully which earns her neck a playful nip.

"I'm excited," he says into her ear. "I mean that in a couple of ways."

Bonnie can only imagine. She'll know for sure later tonight. She laughs into his neck, inhaling his cologne, and finding it so perfectly perfect she wishes she could just breathe him in right there.

"Okay, but as soon as we get there," Tyler says, holding up a finger, "no Shane, no Silas, no anyone, but you and me. Can we do that?"

"_I_ can," Bonnie assures him. "Can you?"

In answer, Tyler brings his mouth down on hers.

* * *

Matt comes over after school.

It's a shock, to say the least, seeing him on the front porch wearing his familiar denim jacket and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. He rocks back and forth on his heels when Jeremy answers the door and smiles an awkward smile. "Hey."

"Hey?"

"Hey," Matt repeats. "I wanna talk."

Jeremy hears what he's saying but it's been such a long time since he and Matt have had a conversation, that he doesn't know how to do it anymore. And if he's being honest with himself, he didn't think Matt would come around _this_ quickly.

"Are Tyler and Bonnie here?" Matt questions.

"Yeah," Jeremy answers. Tyler's opening up a bloodbag in the kitchen, Bonnie's doing homework in her room. It's a full house.

Matt looks at him, waiting for him to do something. It takes Jeremy a moment to realize Matt's waiting to be accepted into the house. _Like a vampire,_ Jeremy thinks. He steps aside so Matt can come in.

"Caroline's on her way," Matt says as he follows Jeremy into the living room.

Tyler looks even more surprised to see Matt. He slaps his bloodbag onto the kitchen table. "I'm fine with that." He was excited when he got back, but in a quiet way, that Tyler way. He told Jeremy what he and Bonnie have planned for tonight. It took awhile for him to get through it, feeling nervous and whatnot.

Someone knocks on the door. "It's Caroline," Tyler says.

Jeremy nods at the door, unsure what he's nodding about. "I'll get Bonnie."

* * *

Caroline and Matt sit together on the sofa. She's tense, obviously uncomfortable. Her hands are tightly folded in her lap and it's like she's not sure where to look. Bonnie sits down in the chair across from her while Jeremy perches on the arm. Tyler remains standing.

"I guess we don't need to rehash what you did," Caroline says first. "I mean, Elena already told us everything you said and... Matt and I are trying to - We're trying." She sighs and looks to Matt for some of assistance.

"We've talked about it," he says, leaning forward, "and we want to try to get past this. Somehow. I mean I have an easier time of it than Caroline does, than Elena does, too. I don't want this to be us. We're all that's left here. A lot of mistakes were made. All of us messed up."

"Not all of us," Tyler says. He's trying not to harsh about it, but it's there.

Caroline looks up at him. "You don't feel guilty at all?"

"I thought you said Elena told you everything," Bonnie says. She and Elena talked about this. They aren't sorry. "If you're looking for an apology or some remorse...you won't find them. I'm sorry you're hurt but we're not sorry they're dead."

Caroline looks to Matt again but he's staring at his hands. "I don't understand," she says, "why it had to go this far. There were other options."

"Like what?" Tyler asks.

"We could have talked about it," she says. "If you were that hurt we could have talked about it, sorted it out that way."

Next to Bonnie, Jeremy is twisting his ring. Around and around and around. It reminds her of Elena.

"That wouldn't have worked," he says, taking his his hand away. "We were beyond conversation. They never listened because they never cared. Damon never-"

"I don't care about _Damon_," Caroline hisses. "You know I don't. Damon was - Damon was..." She wrings her hands and plays with her daylight ring, shaking her head down at it. When she looks up at them again, she swallows down whatever it is that keeps her from speaking. "I don't _care_ that Damon's dead." That's as far as she's able to go.

Bonnie wants to touch her, to comfort her somehow, but she's across the room. Besides, Caroline probably doesn't want to be touched by her. Matt's there to squeeze Caroline's hand instead.

"But you care that Stefan's dead," Bonnie says.

"Of course I do," Caroline says. "He was my friend. He-"

"Stefan was just as bad as Damon!" Tyler yells. "He sacrificed my whole pack!"

"Because you killed his brother!"

Matt's shoulders droop and he shakes his head at the yelling. Maybe he expected this conversation to be a calm one.

Caroline continues. "You can't do that to a person and expect them not to have a reaction!"

"No, Caroline, you can't," Tyler snaps. His jaw in clenched and the vein in his neck is protruding. "But somehow you all expected us to. Let's try this: You all do the same thing you wanted us to do. Get over it. Just...forget. It doesn't matter. They're dead but who cares? You'll get over it."

Caroline gapes at him. "You did this to punish us?"

"No," Bonnie says, "we did it to punish _them_."

"We were just collateral," Caroline says, her voice thick. "Right?"

"That's all we ever were," Jeremy puts in.

Caroline grabs her bag and stands. Her heels sound against the floor as she approaches the door. "Care," Matt calls tiredly.

"No!" she exclaims. "You wanted to do this, Matt! Not me! If you want to sit here with these people who used to be our friends then you do it, but I'm not going to."

Bonnie doesn't want her to go. She knows they can get through this, if they can just stop the yelling, they can talk through this somehow. She can make Caroline understand.

"Wait," Bonnie says, standing up to follow her. "Let's start over. It just got a little tense for a minute."

"I don't have anything else to say," Caroline says. "I thought I could do this. I thought I could look at you and talk about this but I can't. I thought - I thought the hardest thing I'd have to get over with you was this thing happening with you and Tyler. I thought our biggest problem would be _boy_ problems."

Bonnie and Tyler exchange a look. "Caroline," she begins.

"But it's not just that," Caroline says, not letting her speak. "That's _easy_ to get over in comparison to this. This is - This isn't even real. It still doesn't seem real. It's been _days _and I still can't believe that it's true. You're my best friend, Bonnie. And you," she gestures to Tyler, "were my... I loved you guys more than anything."

"Not more than anything," Tyler says.

Not more than Stefan, not in the end.

Caroline looks at him like she's been slapped, and Bonnie knows they've lost her.

She nods angrily. "Before I forget," she says, digging around in her bag. "Here." She flings something at him, and Tyler catches it without blinking. Bonnie follows his gaze down to his palm.

It's his shell bracelet. In perfect albeit ugly condition.

"I found it in the gym," Caroline says bitterly. "It's yours, right?"

Tyler curls his fingers around it and looks at her again. "Yeah, it's mine."

"You gave it to him, right?" she says angrily. "_Right_?"

"Yeah, I did," Bonnie admits.

"You two deserve each other," Caroline snaps. "Oh, excuse me, I mean you _three_ deserve each other." Then she marches out the front door without a glance back. Her car pulls away from the curb, the tires squealing against the pavement.

Bonnie remembers when she longed for Caroline's inner mean girl. Her nostalgia was clearly misplaced.

Matt remains but he's standing now, wiping his hands off on his jeans. "I'll talk to her," he says. "She wasn't ready but I pushed. I'm...sorry, I guess."

Bonnie closes the front door, taking a deep breath. "So, what did you want to say?"

"That I get it," Matt answers. "I do get it. If you'd asked me, it would have been hard to say no. I would have said no in the end. I think. But I would have considered it. And I'm...I'm not sad they're gone either. I'm sad that Elena and Caroline are upset and that _this_ is happening. I wish it wasn't, but I get it." That must be all because he slides his hands into his pockets.

"Thank you," Bonnie says. "That means a lot."

Matt smiles and it reminds her of that summer when they worked at the pool together. She had him to herself then. For days on days on days it was just her and Matt. Days would pass where she would see him but not Elena and Caroline. Once school started it went back to normal, but it was nice for awhile. When he hugs her, she's surprised and it takes her a moment to hug him back. With Tyler and Jeremy he does that bro hand clasp/back slap thing they like to do.

"I'll see you guys at school," he says. "And I'll talk to Caroline. Elena, too. I promise."

The three of them stand in the doorway together and wave in unison when Matt sticks his hand out the window in a salute.

"Well, there's something," Jeremy remarks.

Tyler turns and heads upstairs while Bonnie closes the door. She twists the locks back into place before following Tyler. He's in her dad's room, sitting at the edge of the bed and rolling the bracelet between his fingers. "Tyler?"

"I looked everywhere for this," he says. "I searched the whole gym. I even went to the lost and found and I couldn't find it. Because Caroline had it. This _whole_ time." He chuckles down at it before shoving it onto his wrist. "Do you think I was too hard on her?"

"No," Bonnie says. Maybe she would have been gentler somehow but it wouldn't have changed anything. Caroline's not ready. "If you don't want to do this thing tonight that's okay." Already this day feels miles longer than it was before. Maybe he's not in the mood anymore.

He laughs to himself, stands, and closes the space between them in two steps to kiss her. His hands are on either side of her face and when she reaches up to wrap her hand around his wrist, she brushes against the shells of the bracelet. "She's right," he says, drawing away from her.

Bonnie frowns, searching his face for his meaning. "What do you-"

"We do deserve each other," Tyler says, smiling as he pushes her hair behind her ear. "We're the only ones that get it. We're the only ones that will _ever_ get it." He kisses her again, harder and rougher than he ever has before. She takes a gentle bite of his bottom lip and he laughs against her mouth. "So if you're still game for tonight, then I am, too."

Bonnie smiles. "I am."

* * *

Bonnie sidles up to Jeremy at the kitchen counter, wringing her hands and waiting for him to finish putting away some dishes before speaking. "Jeremy," she says.

"Bonnie."

She smiles. "Me and Tyler are... Tonight we're-"

"He already told me," Jeremy says. No matter how many times they talk about this, it's still uncomfortable to say out loud. It took Tyler several minutes to get it out and it was like pulling teeth. Jeremy got the gist halfway through his nervous ramblings and just stopped him to tell him it was fine.

Tyler and Bonnie are going to have sex tonight. And it's not just going to be sex. It's going to be dinner and candlelight and _then_ sex. It'll be stress-free and romantic. Tomorrow they'll all go back to being wound up, emotionally compromised, and exhausted.

"He did?" Bonnie asks, her eyes widening in surprise. "Oh."

"It's okay," Jeremy says. "I can't tell you enough how okay it is."

"I know," she says. "I just want to make sure."

"Bonnie," he sighs.

"What?"

He kisses her, trailing his hands up her sides to cup her face. She responds with her tongue sliding along his teeth, and her hands twining around his neck to pull him closer. After a few seconds, he draws away from her and stares at her face, where there's a smile forming. When he smiles, too, she pecks his lips again.

How long can this thing they're doing last? Can they both be in love with her, setting aside specific days where they get to spend time together? And other days when all three of them will go dance in dim bars and go back and forth exchanging kisses? Can they make that work?

He doesn't know and for now, he doesn't care.

Jeremy kisses her one more time, long and deep, and smiles when she sighs against his mouth. When he lets her go, he's still smiling. "Have fun."

* * *

Bonnie realizes she and Tyler didn't discuss a dress code for tonight, but she knows it's not black tie and it's inappropriate to show up in sweatpants. So she finds a dress in her closet, black and simple. It'll be chilly tonight and she considers tights but that'll be one more thing for Tyler to take off so she opts to skip them. She straightens her hair and does her makeup, all the while wondering when she got so jittery.

"Get it together, Bonnie," she says while she tries and fails at getting her earrings into her ears. She stabs her earlobe a couple more times before she finally gets it in.

God, she hopes that's not what happens tonight.

But that won't happen tonight. Tyler's good at sex. That's what Caroline always said.

"Stop it," she says. Thinking about Caroline won't make this any better. She moves onto the next ear. It goes even slower than the first. With each prick of the pointy end, she pictures Caroline and Tyler. Having sex. Then she remembers Caroline storming out of here earlier and that's not any better.

At least she's not thinking about Shane.

Now she's thinking about Shane.

"What are you doing?"

Jeremy's leaning against the doorframe, trying not to look too amused.

"I'm freaking out," she replies honestly.

"Why?"

"That's a good question," she mutters.

It's Tyler. She knows Tyler, is comfortable with Tyler, trusts Tyler. She _wants_ to have sex with Tyler. There's no reason to be nervous.

Except she's never had sex with Tyler before. It's not like sex with Jeremy which is pretty second nature at this point. She knows what he likes, where he likes it, how hard or how soft, but she doesn't know what Tyler likes or what Tyler will want or expect. Just this morning she was fine, better than fine. And now she can't put her earrings in because her fingers are shaking.

Jeremy steps into the room and comes to stand next to her, looking at her in the mirror. His gaze slides over her and he smiles. "You look great."

"Thanks."

"Don't be nervous," he tells her.

"Easier said than done," she says, reaching for a tube of lip gloss.

"You were nervous our first time, too," Jeremy reminds her. "And that went _great_. Remember?"

Her lips quirk upward at the memory (candles and the floor covered in blankets, Jeremy's body the warmest thing in the abandoned house) as she smears the lip gloss across her mouth. She slides her lips against each other while she holds Jeremy's gaze in the mirror, twisting the tube closed. She places it neatly on the table and Jeremy reaches for her hand.

"This'll go great, too," he assures her, resting his other hand on her waist. "Is this weird?" he asks, as an afterthought. "Us talking about this?"

Bonnie laughs. "Everything we do is weird." She leans to kiss his cheek. "It's a good weird."

* * *

Tyler's beginning to regret this.

They shouldn't have planned this because now he's thinking about it, all of it. Bonnie will be in his house, in his bedroom, in his bed and at some point he'll be in her, too. And he was so sure this morning, so confident, so ready. He twists the bracelet around his wrist, again and again and again, like it'll help. It doesn't.

They should have just let it happen, like that night in her room. The planning creates nerves. Nerves are all he's got right now. He's also got a spotless house, fresh sheets on his bed, entrees from the Grill on real plates in the oven, but all he recognizes are the nerves.

He's not Jeremy, he doesn't know what Bonnie likes, what she'll want him to do. It'll be awkward. First times are always awkward, but he doesn't want it to be awkward with Bonnie. She's Bonnie. He recalls the few times he heard her and Jeremy going at it, her blissful sighs as Jeremy touched her in just the right spot, again and again and again.

Tyler looks down at his bracelet again. Maybe it's a sign, that's it's back with him tonight. But he doesn't really believe in signs. If he did, this would be a good one.

He tries to start believing in signs.

But what does it mean that it was Caroline who returned the bracelet to him, throwing it like it was little more than trash? That's not a good sign.

Tyler stops believing in signs. Instead he looks to the digital clock on top of the stove and counts down the minutes.

* * *

The streetlamps in Mystic Falls are poor at best, particularly along this road, where they are few and far between. The only decent light comes from the pale beam of Bonnie's headlights. She's calmer now that she was in the dark of her car, in the silence. It's easy to think positive about what'll happen. They'll eat, they'll laugh, they'll talk, they'll have sex. And it'll be fantastic sex. She repeats this to herself and eventually it starts to sink in.

Bonnie eases down on the brakes. There's a shape on the road, lying at an awkward angle. The beam of the headlights illuminate a pale face and golden hair, an unfamiliar woman in jeans and a leather jacket.

_Fucking vampires_, Bonnie thinks . She's familiar with this trick, one of Damon's favorites. Vampire playing dead in the center of the road, concerned driver who becomes a victim. Whoever this vampire is, they picked the wrong road and the wrong night. She could just run them over and continue on her merry way to getting laid. For a moment, she waits. She feels out with her magic and is surprised when it finds a human instead of a vampire.

Frantically, Bonnie gets out of the car. Her heels sound against the pavement as she approaches, stepping into the glow of the lights as she kneels down next to her. Now she can see the ends of her hair are matted with blood, seeping from a wound at her neck. She can't tell how deep it is but when she feels for a pulse it's strong.

"You're gonna be okay," Bonnie says, reaching in her jacket pocket for her phone.

"I figured you wouldn't fall for the usual," a familiar, accented voice says. "I had to mix it up a bit. I thought a real, live human would do it."

Bonnie rolls her eyes as she turns around. "Kol," she says through gritted teeth. His clothes are just as dark as the bordering trees he stepped out of.

"Bonnie," he says with a reverent nod. She thinks she preferred "witch". Less personal. "Where are you off to? You look _ravishing_."

_Ew._

"I have a date," Bonnie says. This is the opposite of what she wanted to spend her night doing. Rebekah has fallen down on the job.

"With boyfriend number one or boyfriend number two?" Kol asks, laughing to himself. "It doesn't matter. You won't be making it there."

"Remember what happened the last time we met?" she asks. As a reminder, she snaps his back like a twig. Out here, with no sounds except for them, it's breaking is like a crack of thunder. He falls to the ground in beam of her headlights, torn between agony and amusement. Shadows hide some of his face while the lights make the other half glow.

"In another life," Kol cries out, talking to her, or the girl he bit, or the empty road, "we would be good friends."

Bonnie wishes she could kill him. But his poor, sired line wouldn't thank her for that. "But not in this one."

Kol looks at her and fixes her with a cold stare. The smile that plays at his lips is just as icy.

There's a sharp pain, somewhere inside her, and a thickness in her throat. It bubbles from her mouth, her blood, dribbling onto her chin. Her knees give way beneath her and she falls, losing her grip on Kol and his bones. The blackness of the sky swims above her, the stars blinking at her. Oh, no, that's _her_ that's blinking. Someone else steps into view. Blond, pretty, still bleeding, and compelled. The knife she holds is stained red with Bonnie's blood, glittering in the light of the headlamps.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, never stop for the body in the road.


	15. Saved

**I've been looking forward to putting this chapter up and I got really excited once I finished so have a same-day update. It's all Bonnie's POV this time but the boys will return in the next one. Thanks for reading/reviewing!**

* * *

Saved

Bonnie tries to breathe but she's choking on blood. She feels for her magic instead. _We've been here before, Bonnie_, she thinks. _You know what to do_.

April Young's face flashes in Bonnie's head.

She doesn't even know this girl. She could be anyone to anyone, someone's friend, someone's girlfriend, someone's daughter. But Bonnie feels the magic pulling at her, instinctively reaching for a life to take, to exchange. It's not the girl's fault Kol picked her for this.

Tyler's voice, his face, the feel of his mouth on hers, it's all coming back to her on this road with her car parked a few steps away. _Don't wish yourself away, Bonnie. I'm not sad you're here. I need you. I want you._

But April was an accident. This girl will be on purpose.

But if Bonnie doesn't, she'll die.

Kol will get exactly what he wants. No witch to find Silas, no Silas, no cure, no nothing. They'll get nothing.

"Finish her off, darling," Kol says. "This is running a bit long." He's still healing. He's lifted himself into a crouch but he's still in pain. His body is still broken.

_Good._

The blond lowers herself at Bonnie's side. Her hair shines in the glow of the headlights and her face is still and dazed. The compulsion has a complete hold on her. Maybe Kol will allow her to go on living after this, but chances are he won't.

_Then it doesn't matter either way_, Bonnie thinks. _Kill her now and save yourself._

The blond lifts the knife.

_I can't_, Bonnie thinks. _I can't._

She closes her eyes and braces herself.

There's a rush of wind and a cry of pain. When she opens her eyes again, it's because someone's tugging at her body, lifting her head up to rest in their lap. Blond curls float above her and a face that she can't quite make out in the glare of the lamps. It's not the girl Kol compelled whose hair is pin straight.

"Bonnie? Bonnie?"

Caroline.

Bonnie didn't even hear another car pull up. She tries to say her name but all she can feel is the blood in her throat.

"This is touching," Kol says. He sounds far from them. "My brother might be a bit sad to hear I've killed you."

_Don't touch her._

Bonnie feels for him and her magic slides against him. It's slippery but she latches onto him. The spine is hard to grip so she goes for his leg instead. She pulls it from underneath him and crushes it. She doesn't hear if Kol hits the ground, but she sees Caroline above her, clearer now, putting her wrist to her mouth. Veins spread beneath her eyes as she takes a bite.

"Drink this, Bonnie," Caroline says, pressing it to Bonnie's mouth. "You'll be okay."

She obliges, dragging her tongue along the jagged edge of Caroline's skin. The blood is just as cool as her skin, maybe colder. Bonnie tries to lift her hands to hold Caroline's arm to her mouth but she can't. They're too heavy. Caroline does the work for her and holds her arm against Bonnie's mouth. The blood she's spitting up and the blood she's trying to swallow mingle and mix. She hopes she's getting what she needs.

Caroline's hands are cool and gentle. As they push her hair back away from her face, they remind her of Tyler's hands. Caroline's are smaller and delicate, her nails are manicured and painted a bubblegum pink, but the chill is familiar and comforting. Bonnie thinks she's probably ruining her makeup, but it doesn't matter anymore. It's not like she's going to make it to Tyler's tonight. "It's okay, Bonnie," Caroline says. Bonnie can hear her tears and then feel them, falling onto her neck. "I'm sorry."

_It's okay. It's just water_.

"I didn't mean what I said before," Caroline says.

_Oh, that's what we're talking about_, Bonnie thinks. _You didn't say anything _too_ bad_.

Caroline's said worse in fights they had over art supplies in preschool. Bonnie will survive. Well, she'll survive _that_. This is a tossup.

She leans closer to her and Bonnie can make out more of her face. Round, terrified, and streaked with tears. She sniffs, pushing back tears. "I love you, Bonnie," she goes on. "You're still my best friend." She takes another bite of her wrist. It must have healed. She offers it to Bonnie again and she swallows it down. It's hard to do but she does. "You'll always be my best friend."

Bonnie almost smiles. She _does_ smile but then blood spills from her mouth to drip down her chin and she closes her mouth again.

_That's attractive._

"It won't work," Kol says.

_Just shut up_, Bonnie thinks, exhausted. She just wants Caroline's blood to do what it has to do so she can get up and kick Kol's ass then find Rebekah and kick hers then go home and fall asleep in between Jeremy and Tyler and pretend this whole night never happened.

"Shut up," Caroline yells.

_Thank you. _Not everything has changed. They're still in sync about some things.

Kol's laughing. Bonnie's sitting up enough to see him as he stands back up and slides his hands into his pockets. "Her injury is too severe. She'll die, and then she'll transition. Either way, she's not a witch. So carry on, dears." He shrugs his shoulders. "Do you mind if I stay here and watch?"

Bonnie stares up at Caroline. She lost Kol somewhere around "transition".

"Caroline," she chokes, drawing the blond's attention back to her. She's staring in horror at Kol and her horrified gaze slides down to Bonnie.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie," she says again.

_I can't transition. I won't transition_.

Caroline knows this.

The magic pulls at her and seeks a human life. She doesn't draw it back. Instead, she lets it roam.

_I won't die at all_.

"Don't talk, Bonnie," Caroline says when Bonnie moves her lips again. "Don't try to talk. The blood will work."

They both know Kol's right. He's an asshole, but he's not wrong. His compelled friend got her right where it counted. If he wanted her out of the way, he did a really great job.

The magic doesn't want her to die either.

"Is she...alive?" Bonnie asks. Her tongue feels slimy and heavy, the blood covering it making it metallic tasting and gross. "The girl?"

Caroline nods her head vigorously. "Yes. She's just unconscious. I didn't hurt her." She wipes blood away from Bonnie's face with her sleeve. Knowing Caroline that sleeve is attached to something expensive and designer and Bonnie's blood will never come out of it.

"Good," Bonnie says.

Caroline's brow is furrowed and she's confused, very confused. Bonnie looks past her, toward the night sky. Those stars are still there, still blinking. She reaches past Caroline, past Kol, past their dead bodies and dead hearts, to coil around the other girl's. She doesn't know her name. She's like the man she met in the bar, the one dead and decayed in her backyard, but he was a terrible man. She tells herself this girl may be terrible, too, but she doesn't know that for sure. It's probably not even true.

Even so she clings to it, as her magic fingers wrap around this poor girl's heart and take everything from it. She doesn't look back to Caroline until she feels the warmth in her bones, floating across her skin. It's comforting, but that's probably the point. Saving your own life is supposed to be a pretty exhilarating, being alive when one is supposed to dead is meant to be a nice feeling.

"Bonnie," Caroline says, her eyes growing wide.

Bonnie doesn't have to see to know her veins are blackened. It's written all over Caroline's face, in her puzzled expression, her parted lips and crinkled brow. What does Bonnie look like to her? She doesn't remember what Jeremy said she looked like the first time, but she probably doesn't look good. Or normal. Whatever Caroline thought about her before, about Stefan dying, it'll be compounded a million times by this. An indiscriminate kill of some girl neither of them has ever met, a girl who is only here because she had the misfortune of crossing paths with a homicidal Original who doesn't want Bonnie to raise some mystical, maybe nonexistent witch/vampire/something.

_I don't want to die_, Bonnie tells her. She's surprised when recognition crosses Caroline's face. She heard her. Her concentration is returning, her strength. This feeling has become familiar, more familiar than it should. There was hardly any pain before, when the knife slipped through her and nicked something vital. There was just a pressure on her that she couldn't quite pinpoint, but now she feels as though she's floating. It's an all-encompassing euphoria.

"Bonnie," Caroline repeats. Her voice is hoarse. "What's happening?"

_I can't die_, Bonnie tells her.

Caroline turns her head to wipe her wet cheeks on her shoulder. "You won't," she says.

_I won't_, Bonnie agrees. _Just give me a few minutes._

A few more minutes and she'll be able to do Kol some real harm and her and Caroline can get out of here. She tries not to think of the other blond somewhere out of sight, who is dying as Bonnie was.

"Kol," another accented voice says, this one female and equally annoying.

Bonnie is _so_ done with Originals.

"Sister," Kol says brightly. "A fine night for a stroll, isn't it?"

Rebekah comes into view, leaning over Caroline to look at Bonnie's face. "You've certainly looked better, Bonnie," she comments. "I like your dress though. It's just bloody enough for me. Don't worry, darling, I've come to relieve you of my brother."

_Now you show up_, Bonnie says harshly. She practically screams it into Rebekah's mind but the Original isn't bothered by the intrusion.

"Better late than never," Rebekah says with an unconcerned smile. "Kol, let's go home."

"She's still alive," Kol points out.

"And alive she will remain. I need her."

Bonnie closes her eyes and tunes them out. In the end, they're both enemies. Someday she'll get rid of them both. Just not today. She focuses on Caroline instead, on her cold fingers still light and prodding on her forehead.

_Almost there, Care_, Bonnie tells her. She's able to put a hand to her stomach, where the knife's tip was able to exit. It doesn't hurt so bad when she presses down on it.

Above her, Caroline wipes at Bonnie's face some more. Her sleeve catches the light and Bonnie sees it's covered in her blood. "You look really pretty, Bon."

_Liar_.

Caroline laughs but it only makes her cry harder.

"_Kol_!"

Rebekah's yell makes Bonnie open her eyes. There's a blur somewhere in front of her, Originals struggling. She hates them so much. She's lying on the ground, killing a girl to save herself in the arms of her maybe best friend, and they're having a wrestling match.

Bonnie's mouth is full of blood. She rolls over, and Caroline helps her though she doesn't need it, to spit it out onto ground. She does that a couple of times before she pushes herself to her feet.

Kol flings Rebekah onto the hood of Bonnie's car. Her body leaves a dent. And now they're wrecking her car.

"Kol," Bonnie calls, wiping off her hands on the skirt of her dress where there's not as much blood. He looks toward her and his eyes don't have time to settle before she flicks her wrist and twists his head around. Caroline's face is grim.

Rebekah looks down at him, impressed. "Thank you, Bonnie. I appreciate that."

"That makes one of us," Bonnie hisses. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping him in line?"

"He got away from me for a moment," Rebekah says, as she bends down to throw him over her back. "But you're alright aren't you?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. But there's someone there who isn't and Bonnie can't make herself look over at her.

"Then what's the big deal?" Rebekah says with a lighthearted shrug. She turns to go.

"Rebekah," Bonnie says, "we'll talk."

She's not worried. "Looking forward to it. Goodnight, girls."

* * *

Rebekah's long gone when Bonnie finally approaches the dead girl in the road. She's bloody in all the same places as Bonnie and blood drips from the corner of her mouth. Caroline leans down to feel for her pulse. "She's dead," she says. "Bonnie, what did you do?"

"It was the only way," Bonnie says, avoiding Caroline's eyes. It's like she's right back in the woods with Tyler and Jeremy the night Stefan died. April's pale skin and green dress. This nameless girl is dressed all in gray. "I wouldn't have..." She doesn't want to finish. She looks down at her hands, streaked with blood and dirt and grime. Then she wipes them off and reaches onto the ground for the knife. She wipes it off on the bottom of her dress and returns to her car to grab her purse, stuffing it inside. It's her blood that's probably still clinging to it. She can't let the police find it.

Caroline pulls out her phone and punches buttons. "Elena," she says. "I need your help. I'm on Briar and something happened. You have to come get Bonnie's car."

Bonnie turns to face her. "No, she doesn't."

"I'm driving her home," Caroline says, looking at Bonnie pointedly. "Just come get it and drop it off at my house. Hurry up. I have to call the sheriff's office." She rolls her eyes. "Elena, just do this, okay? Thanks."

Next she's dialing the police she says there's a girl in the road, they need help right away. When she hangs up, she reaches out to touch Bonnie's shoulder, turning her around to face Caroline's car.

"You didn't have to do that," Bonnie says. "I can drive myself home." She has to call Tyler and tell him she's not coming. She has to tell him and Jeremy what Kol did, what Rebekah failed to do, what Caroline saw, what Bonnie did (again). There's so much to tell them.

"Elena's on her way. Let me drive you," Caroline says. "You can come to my house. You can shower and stuff before you go home. Tyler and Jeremy will freak if they see you. You look like you got Carrie'd." She smiles weakly and guides Bonnie toward her car. "It's gonna be okay. Okay?"

Bonnie nods as she slides into the passenger seat. "Okay."

* * *

Bonnie can hear Elena and Caroline arguing. She pretends she can't though, as she sits in Caroline's room wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top. Her hair's wet from the shower and all her makeup has been scrubbed off, her perfume muddled and dispersed beneath the shower and Caroline's body wash. The clothes are just slightly too big on her because Caroline's taller, but they're better than the bloody dress Bonnie was wearing. She considered saving it to throw into Rebekah's face the next time they meet, but she decided to throw it away instead. It's currently keeping Caroline's ruined shirt company in the the bathroom trashcan.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Tyler asks. Hearing his voice was a comfort, maybe because it's not accented. She felt the same relief when she heard Elena's, even though hers was very annoyed at having been called to retrieve Bonnie's car. Despite her annoyance, she came through.

"I'm fine," Bonnie says. "I don't know when I'll leave here. Caroline probably wants to talk about what I did and Elena's here now. I don't know what she's doing and...I don't know. I'll call you when I figure it all out."

"Are you okay about...that thing?" Tyler asks.

"Killing someone again?" Bonnie asks, reaching to feel the spot on her back where the knife entered. "I don't think it's supposed to be easy, is it?" It definitely isn't. Tomorrow that girl will be on the news. Bonnie will probably find out what her name was. She was probably a very nice girl, with a promising future. She would have lived a great life if it hadn't been cut short by some menace on a dark road. It'll be easy for the Council to come up with a cover. The shallow bite will be ignored in favor of the stab wound.

"I'm sorry you had to do that again," he says. "Are you gonna be okay with Caroline? After earlier?"

Bonnie nods to herself. "I think the whole seeing me stabbed and spitting up blood made her forget for a minute that I helped kill Stefan. That'll be coming back to her any moment now. I'm gonna stay anyway. Be careful going home, okay? Don't stop anywhere."

"I'll go straight home," he says, even though he's technically already at his home. "Don't worry about me."

He says that like it's easy.

"I'm sorry about tonight," she adds, whispering. Elena and Caroline probably can't hear her over their own intense whispers. They're trying hard not to let Bonnie hear them. Or at least Caroline is. Elena doesn't seem to care much.

Tyler laughs a little. "It's fine. I'm just glad you're okay."

"So am I," Bonnie says with a light laugh. "I'm gonna call Jeremy. Bye."

Bonnie highlights Jeremy's number in her phone and her finger hovers over the Call button. She's distracted by Elena's voice, louder than it has been since she arrived.

"I don't _want_ to go in there," she says.

"Just for a second," Caroline insists. "Just to tell her you're glad she's okay. You _are_ glad she's okay, right?"

"Of course I am, Caroline," Elena snaps. "But I don't want to. You called me this afternoon and you were mad because Matt dragged you over there to talk to them. Now you're trying to do the same to me?"

Caroline lets out an exasperated sigh. "She could have died, Elena," she says. "I really thought she was going to die."

"But she didn't."

"Elena," Caroline says impatiently, "please."

"What do you want me to do, Caroline?" Elena's impatient now. "You want me to go in there and pretend she _didn't_ kill Damon and Stefan? I can't do that. And you can't either. One night doesn't change anything. Has one night changed _anything _for you? I guarantee you it didn't change anything for her. "

It takes Caroline a long moment to answer. If she was ever going to. She doesn't get the chance because Elena speaks first.

"They're still dead, Caroline," Elena says gently. "Damon. Stefan. And they're not coming back. I'm glad Bonnie's okay. I really am. That doesn't mean I can forget what she did. I'll see you tomorrow." There's a jingling of keys passing from one hand to the other. The front door closes and Bonnie knows Elena's gone.

Caroline comes into her room. She's changed into a hoodie and shorts. Like Bonnie, she threw away the shirt she was wearing. She joins her on the bed and hands over her car keys.

"Elena couldn't stay," she says, like Bonnie hasn't been listening this whole time.

"Thank her for me," Bonnie says, fiddling with the keys.

"Yeah, I will," Caroline says. She shifts on the bed and folds her legs underneath her. "So, where were you headed?"

How is such a simple question so loaded?

"I was on my way to meet Tyler," Bonnie answers. "We were supposed to have a thing."

A sex thing.

Caroline doesn't ask for anymore details, and Bonnie's relieved. She doesn't think she has the energy to make up a lie.

"Where were you going?" Bonnie asks. She and Caroline have never done the small talk thing. Caroline Forbes doesn't do small talk at all, but she's doing it now.

"Maddie Fell had some prom stuff she wanted me to pick up," she explains. "I was going to her house."

Prom. That's a thing that'll be happening soon, too. Bonnie keeps forgetting she's a teenager, with all these big milestones approaching. She'll have to get a dress. She'll be shopping for a prom dress by herself, without Elena, without Caroline, without a mom.

How depressing.

"Do you still need to go get it?" Bonnie asks. "I can go home if you do."

Caroline waves it off. "I'll get it at school tomorrow. It's not that big of a deal. I mean Maddie thinks it is but it can wait."

Bonnie exhales. "I'm sorry about earlier. I know Tyler was-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Caroline," Bonnie says, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "Elena's right. Nothing's changed. They're still dead and we still killed them. I'm still not sorry. I will _never_ be sorry. I'm sorry for that."

"Like I said," she says, "I don't want to talk about it. I'm just glad you're okay." She changes the subject. "Why did he do that? Kol, I mean? What did you ever do to him?"

"He doesn't want us to find the cure," Bonnie explains. "It has to be me to do it. He said he was going to try." But Rebekah was supposed to keep him under control. This is what they get for trusting Originals. She tells Caroline about Silas and Shane and everything else, raising the dead or not raising the dead, destroying the world and all that.

"But Elena doesn't want the cure anymore," Caroline says when Bonnie's finished. "You don't _have_ to find it."

"We're not looking for it to give to Elena," Bonnie says. "It's for Klaus."

"You want to kill Klaus?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

Caroline cracks a smile. "Good point. You think you can do it?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "If this cure is real." Without the cure, they've got nothing.

"Fingers crossed," Caroline says, literally crossing her fingers and holding them up for Bonnie to see. Then she drops her hand into her lap, frowning. "You killed that girl."

Bonnie nods and points her eyes at her lap. "Yeah. If I hadn't, it would have - it would have been me. That doesn't make it..." She sighs heavily and shifts in her spot. "...I feel terrible."

Caroline twists her daylight ring around. They all like to play with their rings. She looks like she has something she wants to say, but she swallows it down.

"Say it," Bonnie tells her. "You won't hurt my feelings."

"You feel terrible about her," she says finally, "but not Stefan."

"You don't feel terrible about her?"

"You know I do," Caroline says. "I'm just saying. We _knew_ Stefan."

"That was the problem," Bonnie says. "We didn't know her. She could have been anyone, looking to do anything. She could have been a really great person. Stefan wasn't a great person, Caroline. I know he was to you. You think he taught you how to be a better vampire but what did he teach you really? Control? Stefan never had control. Restraint? Never had that either. You were always the better vampire. He never was. He could have learned a few things from you."

Caroline moves backward so she can lean against her headboard, but Bonnie stays where she is.

"I freaked when Tyler told me," she says, crossing her ankles and folding her arms. She looks almost amused by it now, but Bonnie knows it wasn't very funny when it happened. "I threw my chair and everything. I'm sure he told you."

"Yeah, he did," Bonnie says. "I understand why you're upset. I know Stefan meant a lot to you." It's kind of amazing, how Stefan managed to convince Caroline he was worthy of her loyalty, how _Stefan _got people to care about the way they did and fool them into thinking he was the good one. "But do you understand why we did it? You can hate me for it, but at least tell me you get _why_."

Caroline looks down at her arms, down at her watch. "You should probably get home," she says. "Jeremy and Tyler probably want to see you."

Bonnie swallows and scratches the space above her eye, if only for something to do with her hands. "Yeah, you're right," she says, getting up. "I never did call Jeremy. Thanks for everything."

"You're welcome."

"I'll wash this stuff," Bonnie says, gesturing to her borrowed ensemble, "and I'll get it all back to you."

"Okay."

Bonnie reaches for her bag and slings it over her shoulder. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

She turns and goes. When she reaches the door, Caroline comes like a blur to stand next to her. Bonnie's reminded of Elena then, too, when they talked at her house. One last statement at the door. It'll set the tone going forward. Her and Elena haven't had a conversation since that night.

"I really am glad you're okay," Caroline says. When she hugs her, Bonnie feels tears springing to her eyes. Caroline's hands meet over the healed stab wound, which is little more than a memory now. She squeezes Bonnie tight, just for a moment, so fast she could have mistaken it. "Text me and let me know you got home okay."


	16. Everything

**Not sure how this one became so long. Anyway, have an update. Thanks for reading and reviewing! **

* * *

Everything

"So what exactly kept you from keeping your brother from nearly killing Bonnie last night?" Jeremy demands, leaning against the wooden railing of Bonnie's back porch and glaring at the Original standing at the bottom of the steps. Her hair's taken on an ethereal glow in the morning sunlight.

"I got distracted," Rebekah says through gritted teeth, "by my _other_ brother." She arrived only moments ago and without any niceties Tyler and Jeremy joined her to demand their answers. If she was in a good mood before, it's rapidly dissipated. Now she stands with her hands planted on her hips and one foot resting on the bottom step, jiggling it with annoyance.

"That sounds like a personal problem," Tyler says coolly.

It's not. If Klaus finds out what Rebekah wants the cure for, he might join Kol in trying to get rid of them. And that'll make their plans even harder.

Rebekah rolls her eyes. "I've told him I'm looking to be human and live a boring life with a boring human husband so we can have boring human children and _die_."

"He believed that?" Jeremy scoffs.

"Niklaus suspects nothing," she confirms. "For now." She straightens up, clearing her throat. "Back to business now. I don't know what you're in such a tiff about. Bonnie's _fine_."

"No thanks to you," Tyler chimes in.

Rebekah makes a quiet scoffing sound and looks impatiently down at her shoes. "Where _is_ Bonnie? May I speak with her? You two are annoying me."

"She's still asleep," Jeremy snaps. "It's draining, you know, being stabbed and nearly killed."

"It's interesting then how I'd rather be doing that than having this conversation with you two," Rebekah snaps. "I want to talk to Bonnie. Tell her I'll find her after school."

"That's not necessary."

Bonnie comes out the back door wrapped in a giant sweater but still wearing Caroline's shorts and tank top. Her furry boots sound on the wood of the porch as she comes to stand between Tyler and Jeremy, looking down at Rebekah. "You had _one_ job."

"I know you all like to think my brothers are dimwitted," Rebekah says, "but they're not. Everyone particularly likes to underestimate Kol. Even I occasionally." She looks slightly abashed.

"How did he know I would be there?" Bonnie demands.

"He's been watching your house," Rebekah says. "He realized what direction you were going. This town has very few roads, you know. Might I add, he's no longer watching you. I assure you, I have it under control. What happened last night was an honest mistake."

"Right," Tyler says sarcastically. "Why should we trust you?"

"Let me put this another way," Rebekah says, coming to stand on top of the lowest step. "You don't have much of a choice, do you? I want the cure. Kol is in my way. It is in my best interest to keep a Bennett witch and a hunter alive. You two are here, and you might as well be gift wrapped. And Kol's not the only one who can cause problems for you. Wouldn't you prefer an ally to an enemy?" She smiles, knowing she's right.

Jeremy looks to Tyler whose aggravated expression is probably a mirror of Jeremy's own.

"Besides," Rebekah adds, "this fuss was old last night. Now it's positively ancient. You're in one piece, are you not?"

"A girl is dead," Bonnie says angrily.

"Yes, and what _did_ happen to her?" Rebekah questions, narrowing her eyes.

Jeremy glances Bonnie's way. There's a barely perceptible twitch of her eye.

"Well?" Rebekah says, inclining her head. "Kol was quite certain the bite he gave her was nonfatal, and the news says the poor girl suffered from a stab wound. Quite extraordinary, really. What was her name? Jane? Julia? Something with a "J", I'm certain."

_Jenny_, Jeremy thinks. _Jenny Lowman. _

Jeremy and Tyler saw the six a.m broadcast where the first few minutes were devoted to speaking about her. She was a sophomore at Whitmore majoring in history. They'd turned it off soon after just in case Bonnie came down. If this was going to be anything like April dying, it was going to be rough.

"Keep your brother on his leash," Bonnie says coldly. Her emerald eyes flick over Rebekah with thinly veiled disdain, and she turns to go back into the house.

Tyler goes after her, but Jeremy remains. "If you can't control Kol, we will," he tells her.

"You're welcome to try," she says. "Then we _will _have a problem. See you at school." She speeds from the backyard and Jeremy glares at the spot where she used to be, unable to recall the last time he saw Rebekah at school when classes were in session.

When he returns to the house, Bonnie's at the kitchen table on her laptop. Circling behind her, he peeks at the screen. It's the website of the _Mystic Falls Messenger_ with a front page story on the dead student, Jennifer "Jenny" Lowman, found murdered on Briar Road last night. In a morbid thought, Jeremy wonders if anyone ever nicknamed her JLow. Tyler's leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at Bonnie with concern while he sips from his morning coffee, laced with O-negative.

"Bonnie," Jeremy says, "maybe you should-"

"She wasn't from here," Bonnie says, cutting him off. "She was from Georgia but she came here for school. Last night she was meeting some friends who live in town." She pushes the lid of the computer closed. "The body count is going up. That's three now. Well, two if you don't count the rapist slash murderer I killed over Christmas break."

"I'm not counting him," Jeremy says. Even Tyler's moved on from that. "You did what you had to last night."

"I know," Bonnie says, standing up and going to the cupboard to drag out her tea ingredients. They watch her while she pulls down a cup, setting it on the counter with more force than is necessary. "I'm not going to freak out again. I'm getting used to it now, you know. That's what people do, they get used to killing other people. Maybe _that's_ why Stefan and Damon cared so little."

After her cup is filled to the brim with steaming hot water she drops a teabag into it. "Let's talk about something else."

"How was it with Caroline?" Tyler asks.

When Bonnie got back last night she wasn't interested in talking about it. She was tired and just wanted to sleep so they let her.

"Fine," Bonnie says. "She was...fine. I mean, we didn't really talk about the big thing. I told her about Shane and Silas and the cure. I also told her what we're going to do with it."

"You told her we're gonna cure Klaus?" Tyler asks, finishing off his coffee and dropping the mug into the sink. "What did she say?"

Bonnie shrugs her shoulders. "Nothing really. She was kinda surprised."

"It's good she found you," Jeremy says. That's an understatement.

If she hadn't, Bonnie wouldn't be here. He didn't think about it as much when it was Stefan who nearly killed her. It seems like such an impossible thing, one of them dying, even though it's possible. Jeremy knows first hand. All it takes is one well placed blade, the flick of a supernatural's wrist, a throat left vulnerable, and they won't be here anymore. Last night seemed very close. Neither of them was coming to Bonnie's rescue, neither of them even knew Bonnie needed rescuing. Jeremy tells himself to stop thinking about it, thinking about what they would have done if Caroline hadn't been there. It doesn't apply because Bonnie's fine.

"I'm glad I got to talk to her," Bonnie says. "Even a little. She doesn't hate us. Well, not enough to let one of us die in front of her. There's room for us to maneuver there. She'd probably talk to you, too." She looks to Tyler as she raises her cup to her lips. "If you kind of, you know..."

"What?"

"Didn't get all angry."

"You said I wasn't that bad."

"You weren't," Bonnie assures him. "But I agreed with you. Caroline doesn't so you probably seemed..." She's searching for the right word, and she looks to Jeremy for some help.

"Like a dick," he finishes.

Tyler opens his mouth to respond but changes his mind and closes it. After a few seconds he says, "I'm not a dick."

"No, you're not," Bonnie says, looking at Jeremy pointedly. That was _not_ the help she was looking for.

Jeremy laughs a little to himself. "You're pretty capable, Ty. I remember that fight we had. Well, a couple fights we had." That Tyler isn't the prominent one, not anymore. Or maybe it's because that particular Tyler isn't aimed and firing at Jeremy anymore. Even Bonnie can't deny they had their moments.

"Yeah, I remember," Tyler sighs. "I'll try to talk to her again. Without being a dick."

"Just don't get so snappy," Bonnie advises. "Don't apologize, but keep your cool."

Tyler nods, and Bonnie smiles with satisfaction. Then she glances toward the clock on the microwave. "We have to get ready for school."

"Bonnie, you want the bathroom first?" Tyler asks.

"You go ahead."

Tyler turns to the stairs and Jeremy calls after him, "You didn't ask me if _I_ want the bathroom first."

"I know."

"There you go again, being a dick," Jeremy says. Tyler lets out a bark of laughter as he heads up.

When he's gone, Bonnie leans across the table to look at Jeremy. "What?" he asks.

"When are you gonna talk to Elena?"

That's a good question. Bonnie has already talked to her, Tyler has no reason to, but Jeremy has yet to have a real conversation with his own sister. Or even an unreal conversation with her. He wouldn't know what to say.

"She didn't want to talk to me last night," Bonnie says, "but Caroline was willing. And you're her brother so maybe-"

Jeremy stops her. "We're gonna be late." He goes to his pile of clothes, hidden in the living room corner to find something clean to wear. He hears Bonnie sigh before she goes upstairs, too.

* * *

Tyler finds Caroline before English. He waits outside the door for her and she must realize he's waiting for her because she walks past him without a word to lead him away from the door and to the line of lockers outside. "What?" she says, clutching her books to her chest.

"I just wanted to...I'm glad you were with Bonnie last night."

Caroline raises her eyebrows. "I wasn't just going to let her die, Tyler."

"I know," he says. "I just - I'm glad she wasn't alone." He should have rehearsed. "I want to talk."

"We tried that."

"I want to try again," he says. "If you're up for it."

She stares at him as people rush past on their way to their classes, but she doesn't move. It's like she's waiting for something.

"Okay," Caroline says finally. Tyler lets out a breath of relief. "My house at six. But you have to tell me _everything_. From start to finish. I want to know all of it."

"What do you mean 'all of it?'"

"When, where, how," she says. "_All of it._ All there is to say about how you killed them, how this thing started. Okay?"

"It's gonna be a long story," he warns her. It replays itself for a moment, finding Bonnie, planning with Bonnie, Katherine and the party, Jeremy along for the ride, Damon in the tomb, the hybrids being slaughtered, Stefan nearly killng Bonnie, destroying the boarding house. And now.

"I figured," Caroline says grimly. "Be on time." She steps past him and he moves to follow her but she stops short, spinning back around to face him. "How's Bonnie doing?"

"Fine," Tyler answers. She's doing better than she did with April. "You didn't see her in homeroom?"

"I was late. I overslept," Caroline says, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "I'll see you at six." He follows her into the classroom, and she doesn't speak another word to him.

* * *

After school Bonnie stops by the supermarket. She's in and out in minutes, leaving only with a copy of the _Messenger_. She sits on a bench in the square to read the front page. It's almost exactly what she read this morning. Jenny Lowman. Young, beautiful, dead. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information should phone the sheriff's department immediately.

She drops the paper into her lap and frowns down at the headline. _Young woman found murdered on road._ There was even a picture, a medium sized square filled with Jenny Lowman's heart shaped face and blond hair. Her eyes scan the page once more, focusing on Whitmore. She was a student. Maybe she had taken a class or two with Shane, walked the same buildings as him, seen him on the quad and said nothing. Bonnie rubs a circle into her forehead as the professor's face enters her mind and lodges there, refusing to leave. She can't avoid him forever, not if she wants the cure, but she doesn't want to see him, doesn't want to talk to him. She wishes she'd never met him.

Well that's not totally true.

"Bonnie!"

Her gaze flicks upward to see Matt walking toward her, his backpack slung over one shoulder. She pastes a smile onto her face as he sits next to her, his pale blue eyes roaming her face. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Caroline told me what happened," he says. That explains why he seems to be checking her for injuries. "Are you okay?"

Bonnie nods, swallowing down a lump in her throat. Her gaze falls to the headline about Jenny Lowman and she tries to fit her tongue around the explanation. It'll never get easy to explain, killing someone to save herself. Matt follows her gaze and he taps the page, right below the headline. "Crazy, huh?" he says. "When I first saw it, I thought for sure it was a vampire. I thought the Council was just covering up." He chuckles slightly. "But Sheriff Forbes says its legit."

"Matt-"

"Just some psycho with a knife," he says. "It's weird but I was kinda relieved. I mean, it's awful, but it's been vampires for so long. And then this time it's just another human." He looks to her. "What are you guys gonna do about Kol?"

Bonnie frowns at him, searching his face, and trying to see if he really doesn't know what she did. Matt stares back at her and laughs nervously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason." She looks away, squinting her eyes against the sun. "Rebekah's handling Kol."

"Dancing with the devil."

Bonnie smiles and casts a sidelong glance his way. "You've danced with her before. Literally."

"I have. You trust her?"

"No." She doesn't trust anyone but Jeremy and Tyler. And Caroline. She trusts Caroline. And even Matt. Maybe her circle of trustworthy people hasn't shrunken that much. Or maybe it did but now it's expanding again. She doesn't know about Elena anymore but she trusts Caroline and Matt. _Not enough to tell them what you really did to April Young_, she thinks.

Maybe she only _does_ trust Jeremy and Tyler.

"But she's helpful," Bonnie says, though Rebekah wasn't very last night. Still, she was right. They don't have much choice in the matter.

"So, what are you up to?" Bonnie asks, eager to find a more benign subject.

"Nothing," Matt says. "I'm working for a few hours and then I'm meeting Elena for dinner. I'd invite you but, you know. "

"I get it," she assures him. "Have fun."

He throws an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her to him. "I'll see you later, Bon."

When he's gone Bonnie turns her attention back to the _Messenger._

* * *

Tyler gets to Caroline's a little early but he waits in his car until the digital clock on the dash says it's exactly six o'clock to knock on the door. She answers almost immediately and smiles. She lingers there with one hand on its edge, and he can see she's holding it tight. "Hi."

"Hi."

It takes her a moment to step aside for him to come in. It's like that night all over again. She asks him if he wants anything to drink (Soda? Water? Blood?). He refuses. Instead of going to her room, they sit at the dining room table. She's on one side and he's on the other. He almost expects her to take notes.

"Okay," she says, folding her hands in front of her and taking a deep breath. "Go."

* * *

Jeremy goes back home.

Elena's not there but he knew she wouldn't be. Bonnie mentioned she was having dinner with Matt. Jeremy goes to his bedroom, which he hasn't seen since that one night so long ago when he agreed to stay the night again, when Elena really wanted him back home. It's been made but he knows he didn't do that. He rarely makes his bed, only when guests were coming, when he was having a girl over. Otherwise he let it stay as it was.

Elena must have done it. It had to have been right after that day. It couldn't have been recent. Why would she make the bed of her newly estranged brother after he killed the loves of her life?

She wouldn't.

The whole house feels different now, like it doesn't belong to him. The framed photos on all the walls, him and Elena at various ages, their parents frozen and alive behind clear glass frames, look like a stranger's family. The whole house belongs to some other Jeremy. Even as he looks at his first grade school photo, missing his two front teeth but smiling like he's got them all, he doesn't recognize himself. That Jeremy is happy and oblivious. He doesn't have a magical tattoo crawling up his body and blood (justified blood but blood all the same) on his hands.

He doesn't hear the keys in the door, and he doesn't turn until Elena's already through the door with Matt behind her. They're in the middle of a laugh that fades as soon as they see him. Matt folds his lips together but raises his hand in a wave. Elena stands completely still, holding her keys, and not speaking.

"Sorry," Jeremy says. "I was just looking for something." He lowers his gaze to step around them. It's an awkward shuffle at the door between him and Matt, shifting around one another while Elena turns to face the door, watching him go.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Her voice is hoarse, and she hurries to clear her throat.

Jeremy pauses on the porch. "No. It's not here."

Elena looks like she has something to add. He lingers to hear it, but when she glances to Matt he knows the moment has passed. With a muttered goodbye, he clunks down the stairs and down the street.

* * *

Caroline doesn't take notes. She keeps her eyes on him the whole time, listening. Sometimes she'll interrupt with a question or a comment but otherwise she's intent on listening, soaking it all up, the story of how they got here.

She's shocked to hear the true reason he threw that party and why he bailed in the middle of it, surprised to know Jeremy was only brought in later after Tyler was forced to ask for his help. When Tyler tells her about Christmas, where they reached that point of no return, she's quiet. More quiet than she was before. That was when Damon threatened Jeremy at Bonnie's house, when Tyler bit him and they put him in the tomb. Caroline may be angry when he tells her why they moved so fast, Elena's phone call. He knows she remembers they were together because he remembers. They'd just had sex when Elena called. Elena's interference forced the three of them to kill him faster, sending an astral Jeremy to the tomb to stake him after pretending to do all they could to help Damon.

"Merry Christmas, Damon," Caroline says. Bonnie said the same thing that night.

It's the first smile he and Caroline have shared since this whole thing blew up.

Christmas was also when Bonnie gave him the bracelet which he touches while he speaks. He doesn't realize until he starts talking about it and its original purpose: to protect him. He can still see them, his hybrids - friends.

Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. Kim.

He doesn't mention the man Bonnie had to kill. That's Bonnie secret, and he won't tell it.

Tyler doesn't revisit their breakup on New Year's Eve taking place in Bonnie's living room.

Stefan saving his mom comes up, and then Tyler sending her away. They get to Bonnie pretending to help Stefan, even as Caroline and Elena distanced themselves from him and his downward spiral, astral Jeremy going to the Salvatore boarding house to find Stefan's journal and being killed.

Tyler's surprised by how well he remembers it all. He knows he remembers Damon and Stefan dying, but all the in-between is just as clear. Caroline going to Klaus on Tyler's behalf, Klaus demanding to see Tyler himself, it's all there and it comes back like a wave. He tells her about Stefan taking Jeremy to that bar then disappearing from town even though they'd planned to go after him the night of the Decade Dance. He tells her what happened when Stefan came back, carefully altered to explain April's death. She swallows hard during that. He thinks she may cry, but she doesn't.

"Then the witch who helped Stefan found Elena," Tyler says. "And now we're here. That's all of it."

Caroline takes in a deep breath. "Thank you." She only looks at him for a minute and then down at the table.

"Are you okay?"

"No, Tyler, I'm not okay," she says tiredly. "It's a lot to take in."

"Yeah," he agrees. He rises to his feet. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow?"

She nods again. "I want to talk some more just not right now. I need some time, but I _do_ want to talk some more. To all of you."

"Okay." Bonnie will be glad to hear it. Tyler's glad to hear it. Talking is good.

Caroline walks him out and smiles weakly at him before she closes the door.

* * *

Bonnie hears Tyler hit the landing and reaches for opens the door with her magic as he passes. He stops short and peeks in, smiling. "Hey."

"Hey. How'd it go with Caroline?"

"Okay," he says, stepping into the room. "She wanted to know everything."

"Everything?" Bonnie says, raising her eyebrows as she pats the edge of her bed. She deftly slides the copy of the _Messenger_ into her Chemistry book, hoping he didn't see it. He must not have because he doesn't mention it.

"In detail," Tyler says, joining her.

"What's everything?'

"_Everything_," Tyler says. "When we decided, what we did. From that day I found you at Whitmore to right now. I told her everything, the whole truth. Except the April part. And the random bad guy. I told her Stefan bit you pretty badly, but I got there in time to heal you."

"Thanks," Bonnie says quietly. She wonders what Caroline would say if she knew about April. Maybe she wouldn't react too badly, not if she knew the truth. Or maybe she would be equally angry with them putting the blame on Stefan's dead shoulders.

"I didn't tell her anything about us," he says. "She didn't ask so I figure that's another problem for another day."

"Yeah, one problem at a time," Bonnie says.

He leans to kiss her. Slow and languid with his tongue gliding across her bottom lip, and one of his hands coming to rest on her knee. "I was nervous about last night," he whispers. "Us having sex."

Bonnie smiles a little. Good to know the feeling was mutual. "Why?"

"Because we've never had sex with each other before."

Her smile gets a little bigger. "We can always practice."

Tyler grins as she rises up onto her knees to splay her hands across his chest and push him backward. As her mouth descends on his, she reaches for the door and slams it shut. She only pulls her mouth from his to think of a spell to quiet the room, and bites down on her lip as Tyler's busies his tongue with skating across the column of her throat. They should have done this last night, right here where they knew they'd be safe. Then Kol wouldn't have gotten close to her, wouldn't have found and compelled Jenny Lowman, and Bonnie wouldn't have had to kill her.

_Stop thinking about girls you've killed, Bonnie_, she tells herself as she throws a leg over Tyler's hips. She eases back onto him to rest against his thighs as she pulls off her shirt to reveal her hot pink bra. It's her favorite and from the glint in Tyler's eye, he also likes it. When she tosses it onto the floor, she pushes her books down as well where they fall with a thump. Then she's laying across him and kissing him hard only to be pushed back so he can pull his shirt off. She doesn't see where he throws it because she leans back down to kiss him again. It's clumsy, frenzied, and her hands slide between them to brush against the waistband of Tyler's jeans. Her fingers look for the button, finding it after a sloppy search, and she undoes it. Her hand slips inside, past the waistband of his underwear to take hold of him. He groans into her mouth, already hard. One of his hands tangles in her hair as she kisses him, and he lets out a hiss as her finger travels the length of him. Or tries to. She's constrained by his jeans and underwear.

"Take them off," she says, pulling her lips from his with a smack. She withdraws her hand. Her fingers feel like they're on fire, but it's a good burn.

She slides off of him so he can move. He shoves off his jeans as she leans to suck on his earlobe. He's down to his underwear when he stops, something on the floor catching his attention.

"What?" she asks, her lips at his ear. He's got cute ears. She runs her tongue along the tip.

"You sure you wanna do this right now?"

Bonnie arches an eyebrow. "Yes. Why?"

Tyler reaches down to pick up the copy of the _Messenger_. It rattles in his hands as she show it to her. Bonnie's eyes find the headline instantly. _Young w__oman found murdered on road._

With a sigh, she falls down on the bed.

"I love this," Tyler says. "You on me, touching me, kissing me. All of it. But I know you're upset. I know it's hard."

_Not the only thing_, she thinks as she tries not to look at the bulge in his underwear.

"If you want to do this, I'm all for it," he says. "But if you don't-"

"I do," she says.

"You do?"

"Were the past few minutes not proof of that?"

Tyler smiles. "They were. I just want to make sure. It's not supposed to be easy, Bonnie. What you did. You can wallow, if you want."

Bonnie pushes her hair away from her face and reaches for her blanket. This isn't a conversation they can have while she's in a bra and jeans. "That's the thing," she says. "It _was _easy. I thought I was willing to die but then Caroline was there and she was feeding me her blood and I was dying anyway. As soon as I heard the word 'transition', I decided. I wasn't going to go through that. Or _not_ go through that. So I killed her. When April died, you know what I was like."

Killing April was crippling, but Jenny Lowman is a dull ache. She wasn't sure if she'd ever get over what she did to April, but she's certain she'll get over what she did to Jenny. Compared to April, Jenny dying is painless. Because Bonnie's alive, Caroline doesn't hate her for it, Matt has no idea, and Tyler and Jeremy are just glad she's home.

Tyler's still holding the paper when Bonnie falls backward onto the bed. "I killed her on purpose. I didn't want to die so I killed her. I feel horrible, but I didn't want to die, Tyler. If I could have done it some other way, I would have. But I couldn't have."

There are a variety of variables that could be at play here. She knew April, even if was only a little. Jenny Lowman was a stranger. Neither of them was supposed to be where they were the nights they died but Bonnie found April, _chose _April. Kol chose Jenny. Or maybe Bonnie's gotten used to it, dealing out death to people. She did it to that nameless man, to Damon, to Stefan, to April. Maybe Jenny Lowman is just another addition. Maybe it's because killing April was a shock. Bonnie knew what was going to happen to Jenny. No matter how many times she pictures Jenny Lowman's face - dazed, confused, determinedly following Kol's orders - she can't make herself wish she was dead and Jenny was alive.

She doesn't want to think of Stefan and Damon, of Stefan's words. _We're not the only ones who are deserving. _

April was one thing, Jenny Lowman is another.

Tyler drops the paper back on the floor and lies down next to her. "We all told you we'd rather have you here than not."

Even Caroline, keeping her secret without being asked.

It disturbs her that she doesn't need to hear their convincing this time to be fine with what she did.

"I wouldn't have wanted you to do anything differently," Tyler adds, "if it would have meant you wouldn't be here with me right now. And I don't think there's anything wrong with you being glad to be alive, Bonnie."

Jenny Lowman might disagree.

_But she's dead_, Bonnie thinks. _So you'll never know._

Bonnie turns her head and smiles at Tyler with his bare chest and lean arms. She stops at his waist, determined not to look any lower. But she does, and she knows Tyler's caught her because he starts laughing.

"Does it mean something terrible that I want to finish what we started?" she asks.

"If it does," he says, "it means something terrible about both of us."

Well it's not so bad if it's both of them.

Bonnie leans to kiss him and he meets her halfway, slipping his tongue into her mouth. He folds up her hand, roaming along his chest, in his before he pulls away from her mouth. His dark eyes snap to her green ones and he tugs at the blanket she's still holding. She lets him pull it away, and she smiles under his thoughtful stare. "You still have pants on," he says, like she doesn't know.

"Take them off."


	17. Love and Hate

**Here, have some sex. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Love and Hate

"Take them off."

Bonnie grins playfully and rakes her fingers through his hair as she pecks his lips. "Take what off?" she whispers.

His gaze roams over her, the pink bra, the low rise jeans. Her hair hangs past her shoulders, dark strands curling over the swell of her breasts. _Everything_, he thinks.

"Everything," he says.

He almost wants to take it back as it means she has to take her hands off him. She goes for her jeans first, and when she undoes the button he catches a glimpse of hot pink underwear.

"They match your bra," he says, reaching out to touch the top of them as she pushes her jeans past her hips. It feels electric somehow, touching her this way. He's only thought about doing this with her. Now that it's so close, he doesn't know what he was ever nervous about. His hands move on their own, doing everything his mind wants them to do before he's even realized.

Bonnie looks down and laughs. "And I didn't even do it on purpose."

He smiles at her as she kicks off her jeans, and his smile widens as she slips her fingers beneath the top of her panties to push them down. They move away from his fingers, which fall to her bare skin instead. She's just unclasped her bra when he puts his fingers inside her where she's warm and wet. Her answering gasp is a fantasy come true, and he lowers his lips to her neck to feel the skip and race of her pulsing blood.

"Bonnie," he says, just wanting to say her name and say it when they're like this. He wants to file it away, Bonnie's name, in this moment when they're mostly naked, and it's just the two of them. When she's Bonnie, he's Tyler, and they're about to become Bonnie-and-Tyler.

"Say my name, Bonnie," he says. It's phrased like a command so why does he feel like he's begging? One of her hands slides up his back to stroke his neck, and she angles him she can speak directly into his ear.

"Tyler."

It rolls off her tongue like one of her spells, made special just by her uttering it, and he turns his head to kiss her lips with his fingers still gliding in and out of her. He feels her hands sliding lower. And lower and lower until she's pushing his boxer briefs off. He removes his fingers to help her. He doesn't know where his underwear ends up.

She's gentle as she touches his shoulder and eases him onto his back. "Can I be on top?" she asks, smirking. His answer isn't important (not that it would have been to the contrary) because she's already straddling him. If there's an image Tyler never wants to forget it's Bonnie on top of him, completely naked and looking at him with those grass green eyes loaded with plain, carnal longing and a smile that is as sweet as it is sexy.

"You can do whatever you want."

"_Whatever_ I want?" she asks, leaning her lips down to his ear. Between the gentle caress of her mouth on his earlobe and the slow grind of her hips, it's not like he can deny her anything. There's not much he'd deny her under normal circumstances but under these, she could ask him to sell his soul and he would do it without hesitation.

"Whatever you want," he repeats. He's not expecting anything too wild, nothing that would hurt him. She would never hurt him. When she draws back he can see her look of satisfaction. Maybe she just wants to know he trusts her.

One of her fingers trails along his left nipple. Her tiny smile fades away to be replaced by something else, something sad.

"What's wrong?" he asks, concerned.

"Nothing," she says, reaching for his arm instead. Her fingers twitch over the shell bracelet, and she sighs down at it. When she lowers her head, he's not sure what she's doing until her lips land on his chest.

And he's on her bed, in her room, on a different night. After being pulled from death, the room lit with candles, and Bonnie's face above him with tears in her eyes. Her hand is on his chest, touching the space where the skin and the bone was torn open. _I told you I'd protect you, Lockwood_.

In the present, Tyler feels a sharp something in his chest, heavy and forceful. Something in him wants to break and fall to small pieces and another something grows insistent with desire. He fills his hands with her hair and gently pulls her mouth to his. When their lips meet, its slow and her tongue reaches for his, finds it, tangles with it. After awhile, she pulls away from him, straightening up. Her somber gaze has been replaced by one of anticipation.

"Do you want me to get a condom?" he asks.

Bonnie lets out an amused hum. "We don't need one."

"Well, no," he agrees, "but I'm gonna come. In you. So I can get one if-"

"I want you to," she says.

"Get a condom?"

Bonnie bites down on her bottom lip with just a hint of a smile pulling at her mouth. She shakes her head.

"_Oh_," he says slowly as he realizes. And it's another, "Oh" as she guides him into her.

And then they're having sex, and there's a part of him, floating somewhere overhead and watching, that can't believe it's happening. He's having sex with Bonnie and her nails are digging into his chest then running through his hair then touching either side of his face as she comes down to kiss him. And his hands are everywhere, wherever he can reach: her stomach, her hips, her thighs, her breasts, softly tugging on strands of her hair. He just wants to feel her everywhere, all over him. If there's a part of his body that isn't covered with Bonnie, it's suffering.

It's a good things she's on top. He can let her lead better that way. He doesn't want to be too rough with her or go too fast. Witch or not she's human, and her body is more fragile than his. He doesn't want to grip her too tight and he doesn't want to forget who this is. She's not a vampire like Caroline. Bonnie, he could hurt. So he's careful. When Bonnie stops suddenly, he's sure he's done something wrong. His brain fires with all the ways he can make amends for it.

"Tyler," she says softly. "You don't have to be so gentle about it."

"What?" His voice is thick as she rotates her hips just so.

"You're not gonna break me. I'll let you know what I can't handle. Okay?" She places her hands over his where they are gripping her hips. He tightens his hold until that familiar satisfied smile reappears. He almost closes his eyes as she moves over him, but he forces himself to keep them open. He just wants to look at her as she throws her head back, eyes closed, lips parted.

"See?" she says. "Perfect."

They fit together so much easier than he thought. There are still bumps, Bonnie whispering this or that to him (a little faster, a little harder, just like that), him adjusting her just slightly, but they figure it out. By the end he doesn't know if they're just easy to please or if they're just really fast learners. Maybe a little bit of both. He grins when she sighs his name and can't keep himself from being overwhelmingly pleased with himself as she tells him she wants him on top.

And after that they digress into sentence fragments, incoherent sighs and moans. The only language either of them speaks fluently at this moment is the one they're utilizing across each other. Bonnie's fingers write messages across his back, in his hair, and up and down his chest. He leaves his on her legs held around her waist or he uses his tongue to leave others at the base of her throat. Sometimes she'll say his name or he'll say hers, but he never knows what exactly they're trying to communicate to each other. Pleasure, satisfaction, relief. Maybe sadness because they didn't do this sooner or disappointment because it'll have to end. Or anticipation because they can do it again.

All of the above.

Bonnie reaches orgasm before he does and she rakes her fingers through her hair where she lays, closing her eyes as he moves inside her and lightly caressing his arm. When he comes, she squeezes his wrist, the one with the bracelet on it. With a happy sigh, her hands falls away and reaches for his face instead. She brings him down into a kiss that sears his tongue and nearly makes him hard all over again. He rolls off of her. His limbs are slow, weighed down by a delightful heaviness.

After he catches his breath and he's found Bonnie's hand with his, interlacing their fingers, he leans to reach with his other one for his shirt. He uses it to clean them both up. She's stretching languidly across the bed, eyes still closed.

"Bonnie," he says. His voice is hoarse and he clears his throat.

She turns her head to look at him, sliding her arm beneath her head. "Tyler."

"Come here," he says, shifting the sheets so they can lay underneath them. She rests against him, putting an arm around his waist. It's not until she's been sleeping for awhile that he tries to figure out the feeling that's rooted itself in his chest. It's been there since she kissed his chest and reminded him of everything they've been through together, everything she's done for him, with him. It's warm but also cold, comforting but gnawing. When she shifts against him slightly, he adjusts his arm and stares at the bracelet. He keeps staring at it. And he's still staring at it when he realizes what that unrelenting feeling is. He's felt it before, with Caroline. It was a long time ago when it first hit him, and it felt very similar to this.

Tyler looks down at her. Her heart is steady, her breathing deep. She's very, very asleep. She won't even hear him. That's why it's so easy to say.

"I love you."

* * *

The next day Jeremy can feel the difference.

He's not an idiot so when Bonnie's room got _too _quiet last night, he suspected what was going on. And it was all but confirmed this morning when Tyler and Bonnie came downstairs together. They didn't behave any differently, not really, but it was a subtle change. Before they weren't uncomfortable with each other, they moved with the ease of two people who knew each other well, but now it's gone a step further. They step around each other without trying so hard not to touch each other. Now there's no hesitation about Tyler leaning against Bonnie to press his whole body against hers as he reaches into one of the cabinets while she's making her tea.

And then it's actually confirmed when they tell him, all three of them sitting on the couch, and Bonnie and Tyler looking at him with careful expressions. They're trying to gauge his reaction, and he's trying to figure out what they're expecting it to be. He doesn't understand why they're both being so deathly serious about this thing.

"Um," he says, looking back and forth between them, "congratulations?"

Tyler snorts. Bonnie rolls her eyes.

Jeremy starts laughing. "Well, what am I supposed to say?"

* * *

After school, Jeremy's home alone, mapping out their weekend. They definitely have to get some hunting in, along with figuring out this Kol problem, and they should probably work in some leeway so they can deal with Caroline and Elena should that be necessary. They also have to factor in homework and some kind of downtime.

There was a time his life didn't require this level of scheduling.

The doorbell rings and he jumps to answer it. He doesn't know who he expected. So few people come ringing Bonnie's doorbell. But it's Elena with her arms hanging at her sides and her hair hanging long and straight past her shoulders. She doesn't look any different from when he's seen her, or when he saw at her their house the other day, but she feels like a stranger to him. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. The feeling must be mutual.

"Hey," she says when he hasn't said anything.

"Hey."

"Can I come in?"

"Well," Jeremy says, looking behind him at the empty living room. It feels weird to be letting Elena in without Bonnie or Tyler there, it feels weird to be there with Elena at all, after everything. It's just the two of them. There's no Matt to act as an awkward buffer, no Bonnie to do all the talking, no Tyler to snap angrily at her. Just him and his sister.

He steps backward, and Elena enters. She glances around Bonnie's house like she's never been there before. It's been awhile. She hasn't been there since Jeremy moved in, taking up that permanent spot on Bonnie's couch. She only takes a few steps into the house, and then she lingers near the door as he closes it, facing the couch with his set-up of sheets and blankets neatly folded on the arm where he puts them during the daylight hours. It looks like such a vulnerable space with Elena staring at it like she is. He goes to stand in front of her, blocking her view.

"So," he says, "what do you want?" It sounds blunt to his ears, and he cringes inwardly.

Elena doesn't seem offended. On the list of things he's done lately, maybe that one doesn't apply. "I've been wanting to talk to you about this thing with Kol," she says.

He was expecting Damon and Stefan.

"What about it?"

"Just give him what he wants. Stop looking for the cure."

"Elena-"

"I don't _want_ it," she says sharply. "We talked about this already. Just stop looking for it. Don't give him a reason to hurt you or Bonnie or anyone else."

Jeremy opens his mouth to explain but she speaks over him.

"He's not going to stop just because Rebekah tells him to," she says, fixing him with a hard stare that reminds him very much of their mother's. Even though she wasn't Elena's mom, not by birth, it's still there. "Someone's going to get hurt - someone's going to _die - _if you guys don't stop."

"We can't," Jeremy says, sliding his hands into his pockets. Elena's face morphs from determined to confused. "We're not looking for the cure for you. We're getting it for Klaus." She seems even more confused now. "Caroline didn't tell you?"

"No," Elena says slowly, her eyebrows knitted together. "You want to cure Klaus?"

"And so does Rebekah. Well, she just wants him to be a miserable, mortal werewolf, but we're going to kill him. With the bloodline severed, none of you will die when we do it."

"Oh."

Elena's reaction wasn't what he'd expect. Maybe he thought she'd be a little happier, a little more hopeful about the situation.

"But if Klaus is gone," Jeremy says, a little eagerly, "you won't have to stay a vampire. You said you wanted it to be safe, right? Once he's gone, you will be. You won't need to worry about him making you into a blood bag to make new hybrids or anything like that. You'll be able to use the cure, too. If you want it."

There was a time that was all Elena wanted.

She tugs at her fingers and feels her ring. She does another quick scan of the room. "Where are Bonnie and Tyler?"

"They're picking up dinner."

"Oh," Elena says. "How is she?"

"How's who?" Jeremy asks confusedly.

"Bonnie." She doesn't look at him when she says her name, like doing so is too much. Instead she looks toward the framed photos scattered throughout the living room as if they'll tell her something about Bonnie's well-being that Jeremy can't.

"Good," Jeremy answers. "You could stay and wait for her. I know she'd love to talk to you." It's a feeble suggestion, and they both know it. If she didn't want to talk to Bonnie the other night, after Bonnie barely escaped Kol's attempt, why would she want to talk to her now?

"Caroline told me she talked to Tyler yesterday," Elena says, "about everything."

"Yeah. Do you want to? Talk, I mean?" He keeps going when she doesn't look like she's in a hurry to respond. "I'm open to talking, if you are. It's not like I'm hiding from you or anything."

"Seems that way," she says, turning her eyes to him. "It's been like, a week since we last spoke. And that was before...everything."

It's hard to believe that stupid fundraiser was only a week ago.

"You could have talked to me," he reminds her. "I've been here. I don't go anywhere." It's a painfully small town. If Elena wanted to chat, she could. But so could he.

"And I do?"

"No," he sighs. "I'm just saying. If you want to talk-"

"And say what?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"That you're sorry," she snaps. "That you'd take it back if you could. Something!" She scoffs. "But I know you're not, and I know you wouldn't." She shrugs her shoulders hopelessly. "Where does that leave us?"

"You're still my sister."

Elena looks up to the ceiling and lets out a shaky breath. "Yeah." She turns back to the door and takes the knob in hand. But she doesn't turn it. "Be careful with Kol. With Klaus. With everything. Don't do anything stupid."

"I won't," he promises. Like Bonnie and Tyler would let him.

"If you..." Her voice trails off, and she looks like she's trying to figure out where to pick it up. "If you need anything-" She can't finish, focusing on the floor instead of his face. When she finds her voice again she says, "You're my brother, and I love you. I just really hate you for what you did."

Jeremy wishes he was better with words. He wishes Bonnie was there to be better at words for him. He's still trying to figure out something to say when Elena pulls open the door and leaves. It's closed behind her when he finally says, "Love you, too" and hopes she hears.

* * *

Bonnie feels the incredible urge to reach for Tyler's hand as they step into the Grill. He's jingling his keys in one hand and his other, the one closest to her, is empty. His fingers are relaxed, slightly curled. Long, tapered fingers that she now knows the feel of intimately. And she can't stop staring at them, even as Tyler leads her to the bar where they await their to-go order.

And then it's all shot to tell.

"Now this seems familiar," Klaus says as he leans against the bar beside them, brushing his arm against Bonnie's own so she withdraws, turning to Tyler more. He's fixated on Klaus behind her. One of his hands twitches at his side.

"Does it?" Tyler says, trying hard not to appear fazed.

"Yes, don't you remember?" Klaus says. "Oh, it wasn't _too_ long ago, Tyler. You and I at this very spot discussing quite coincidentally, you two." Bonnie looks toward Tyler questioningly, and he lets out an aggravated breath. "You didn't hear, Bonnie? Well, Tyler and I were talking about _you_, and he got a bit testy."

"I'm getting a bit testy right now, too," Tyler snaps. "Want me to hit you again?"

"Well that last blow really smarted," Klaus says sarcastically, "but I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate my reciprocation."

"What do you want, Klaus?" Bonnie sighs. The last thing they need is an antagonized Klaus on their backs, not when they've already got his brother to deal with.

"I wanted to see for myself how you're faring," Klaus says with a smirk. He drags his gaze away from Tyler to settle on her. "I was told of your altercation with Kol. I'm pleased to see you're still in one piece."

Judging from the creepily flirtatious raising of his eyebrows, Klaus is falling back into his usual ways: get to Tyler by hitting on his girlfriends. Not that Bonnie's Tyler's girlfriend. She's his _something, _but it doesn't have a name. She's his...Bonnie and he's her Tyler.

"Good to know," she says.

"The last time I spoke with any of you was before a particular homicidal ball was dropped."

Bonnie slides her eyes in Tyler's direction, and watches him close his eyes for a moment, as if when he opens them Klaus will simply have disappeared.

"It was quite impressive, I must admit," Klaus continues, "you dispatching the brothers Salvatore. I didn't think you had it in you."

Klaus has no idea what they have in them.

"Anyway," Klaus says, drumming his fingers on top of the table, "I'm here to offer my services in controlling Kol." When Bonnie and Tyler roll their eyes in unison, he smiles. "We're on the same side, are we not? We have the same goal: locating the cure."

They do.

"And a common enemy standing in the way of it," Klaus adds. "Kol is young. Well, younger than I. He is impulsive and single-minded, but he is not unstoppable. I'm quite surprised I wasn't approached immediately." His voice takes on a tone of false offense. "Instead you entrust this delicate situation to _Rebekah_, of all people."

Of all people? As if Klaus is somehow _better_ than Rebekah? Bonnie would have laughed if Klaus wasn't standing so disturbingly close to her. She's leaning further and further into Tyler, who takes a step to the side. He slips a finger into one of her belt loops and tugs slightly so she knows she can move further away. Klaus, however, has no sense of personal space, and moves to close the gap which makes Bonnie and Tyler both groan. "I can make Kol regain sense," Klaus says, ignoring them, "much better than Rebekah can."

"Then do it," Tyler snaps.

Klaus laughs softly. "I planning on it. However, I'll need your help."

Bonnie's looking at the top of the bar, but she feels Klaus' eyes on her, boring into the side of her face. "How so?"

"I need a dagger."

She smirks. "I should have known your methods of reasoning with your brother include putting a dagger into his back." She remembers when Klaus said Elijah was unoriginal. He's not the only one.

"I plan on putting it through his chest, actually," Klaus says casually, "but the end result will be the same."

"What do you need us for?" Tyler asks.

"I don't need _you,_" Klaus corrects, keeping his eyes on Bonnie. "I need _you_. Elijah hid the daggers well, but there's one still within reach."

Bonnie knows what he wants.

"No," she says.

Klaus pretends to be affronted. "You didn't even allow me to finish."

"I'm not opening Elijah's coffin," Bonnie snaps, "and I'm not taking that dagger out." She's not gonna replace one Original brother with another. All she has to do is look at what happened when they let Rebekah out to put Elijah in.

_You can leave now_, she adds silently. But she already knows there's more Klaus wants to say.

"Well, that was not unexpected," he says. "Allow me to make another suggestion."

Bonnie glares at him.

"You help me find where Elijah hid the daggers," Klaus says. "And when we locate them, I will make sure Kol stays out of both of our ways. What do you say, _Bonnie_? You and I should make quick work of it." He looks to her expectantly. "Would you like to confer with Tyler? I can step aside for a moment." He does that, going across the room to sit at a table in the corner by himself.

She turns to face Tyler who looks much more exhausted than he did when they first came in. "What do you think?" he asks.

"I don't know," she says. "He's Klaus."

"But we need to get rid of Kol," Tyler says, "especially if Rebekah's going to be slacking off. And we don't even have to the be the ones to do it this time. We just leave it to Klaus."

After all the work they've been doing lately, letting Klaus work for them seems like a joy.

"Daggering his siblings is his second favorite thing to do, you know," Tyler says.

"What's the first?" Bonnie asks.

"Making me miserable."

Bonnie smiles weakly as she reaches for the back of his hand, running her thumb across his knuckles. She remembers when the fingers of that same hand were knuckle deep in her last night, and she smiles at the memory. Maybe Tyler remembers, too because he's also grinning. He meets her eyes for split second before he clears his throat and they both hurry to refocus.

"If you want me to tag along, I will," he says.

"He'll just flirt with me more if you're there," Bonnie reminds him, if what Klaus does can be called flirting. "And that won't speed up this finding the daggers thing either."

Klaus has surely been looking. He's nothing without daggers to punish his family with. So far the search has been fruitless, and if he's enlisting her help to find them, Elijah must have hidden them better than they thought.

"I can handle him," she says.

Tyler nods a little and he's about to add something else when Klaus returns, looking to them expectantly, even though he was probably eavesdropping. "Well, Bonnie?" he says. "Are we in agreement?"

"We are," she says bitterly.

Klaus wiggles his eyebrows cheerily. "Good. Shall we start now?"

"I'm hungry," Bonnie says.

"We'll take your food with us," Klaus says certainly. "Ah, here we are."

One of the usual guys passes Tyler their order and when Klaus smoothly requests a second bag, he hands it over. Klaus fishes out Bonnie's dish when she tells him which it is and slips it into the second bag. "Now we're all ready," he says. "Would you like me to drive?"

"No," Bonnie says, snatching the bag from him. "I have my own mode of transportation. I'll see you at your house." She turns her gaze on Tyler who looks familiarly worried. She wants to touch him, kiss him goodbye perhaps. After last night she can't bring herself to just walk away with a wave and a casual farewell. So she raises herself onto the tips of her toes and smiles a little as Tyler leans down for her to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you at home."


	18. Away We Go

**This one ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated so I cut some stuff out to be included in the next update. That being said, this one is all Bonnie's POV. Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Away We Go

Bonnie makes Klaus wait outside as she goes into Klaus' personal funeral parlor her arms loaded with candles, a bowl, and a bottle of water, When he argues, she rolls her eyes. "I'm going to find your daggers, Klaus," she sighs impatiently. "But I'm not doing this with you in there." It will require opening Elijah's coffin, if only momentarily, and she's not giving Klaus the chance to remove his dagger, despite his insistence that he won't. "Just wait out here."

Klaus grumbles his discontent but agrees to remain outside the room. To make sure he does she spells the door.

After Klaus watched her eat her food, his eye boring into her uncomfortably, she put him to work. He whined some about finding her what she needed, but when she reminded him that he came to her for help he begrudgingly scrounged up the necessary supplies.

When Bonnie lifts the lid of Elijah's coffin she looks down at him with a small smile, incredibly pleased with the sight of him, grayed and still. It's a good look on him. "Hello, Elijah," she says as she lights the candles and sets the bowl on a nearby table, pouring the water into it. She dips her fingers into the water, making sure they are well saturated. When she withdraws them, she touches the sides of Elijah's cool, dessicated head, and touches his mind.

It's foggy with the dessication at play but she pushes through it, snatching down the mental cobwebs that have strung themselves up along his psyche. She pushes further to his memories, scraping the sides of his brain to find the ones she wants. She looks through Elijah's eyes at the last few days he was walking around. There's a lot of recent stuff in there, her at the fundraiser, the pain of his body breaking, the dagger coming down into his chest. Bonnie sifts through those to go further back. She sees Elena, the night Elijah nearly killed Jeremy, yelling at him across her kitchen, enraged because Jeremy could have died.

Bonnie presses onward and latches onto something else. It's a darkened highway with only the headlights to illuminate the way. The headlamps light up an exit that points to Wilmington as Elijah switches onto the ramp. It takes her a moment to realize it means North Carolina. She missed something somewhere, Elijah getting there. She tries to find it, going further, but she runs into a cloudy mess of muddled memories. She sifts through them, imagining waving her arms to clear them like she would smoke.

Elijah approaching a small house, right on the corner of a quaint residential street. The porch is lined with potted plants and she catches a glimpse of a garden along the side of the house. His gaze slides over the street sign. Magnolia. She feels his hand as if it is her own, his fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of a briefcase, heavy with the weight of what she knows to be the daggers. He mounts the stairs to the porch and pauses when the door opens before he reaches it.

"Elijah."

The man who stands there is old and hunched over, his dark skin is withered and drawn across his face. From the way his eyes linger on something that isn't there, Bonnie can guess he's blind. Still he finds Elijah easily and extends a hand to him. "It's good to see you," the man says with a bellowing laugh that gives way to coughs.

"You as well, Clay," Elijah says, clasping the man's hand.

When Clay retreats into the house, Elijah follows. No invitation is needed.

It smells strongly of herbs, a mixture that Bonnie can't separate. It reminds her of Shane's office though there is an undercurrent of must there as well. She knows right away Clay is a witch, who's been practicing for as long as Bonnie's been alive. How he met Elijah is anyone's guess, but if his number is resting in Elijah's phone for use, if Elijah is free to enter his home at will, they must go far back.

"You've brought them," Clay says, walking slowly through the house. He walks without touching anything, with no need to feel his way around. He guides Elijah into the dining room. The table is covered in books, grimoires that are open to various pages, with notes scribbled in the margins. He obviously can't see them but still, he reads.

"I have," Elijah says, switching the briefcase into his other hand. "You're certain you can hide them effectively?"

"I wouldn't have allowed you to come if I didn't," Clay says with a smile as he lowers himself into one of the chairs. "Put them down. Let me see them."

Elijah obliges, his elegant fingers opening the briefcase. Bonnie barely gets to glimpse the daggers that are inside before he's spun it around to face Clay who reaches to touch them. He doesn't put his hands on them, but allows his fingers to hover over the shining blades.

"They'll be safe here."

Elijah clasps his hands behind his back. "Good. Thank you, Clay."

"My payment?"

"Ah, yes," Elijah says, reaching into his suit jacket, "I'd almost forgotten." He withdraws a check, primly written. Bonnie can't see the amount. He takes Clay's hand with a surprising amount of gentleness and slips the check into it. Clay nods down at his fingers and withdraws the paper to put into the pocket of his sweater.

Bonnie withdraws from Elijah's mind. The room seems overly warm after coming out of Elijah's head, and the colors are a bit too bright. She lets them settle for a moment and finds normalcy again. The dark, burgundy wallpapered room of Elijah's resting place.

_Clay in Wilmington in the corner house on Magnolia Avenue. _She repeats it to herself.

She goes back outside after she places the spell back on Elijah's coffin. Klaus is standing outside, his arms crossed, looking annoyed. "Well?"

"I know where he took them," she says. "There's a witch in Wilmington named Clay. They're with him."

A slow smile spreads across Klaus' face. "Road trip?"

Bonnie laughs, managing to be amused by his utter delusion. "No."

"I insist," Klaus says. "Don't you want to see the fruits of your hard work?"

"Not really." She's perfectly content hearing about it later.

Klaus continues on. "I may need your help. He's a witch, after all."

Well, that's true. But if Bonnie were to have a list of things she never wanted to do in her life, going on a road trip with Klaus would be near the top. She doesn't want to take a three minute walk with Klaus much less spend hours in a car with him.

"A few hours both ways," he adds. "Roughly an hour spent there. We'll be back late tonight. I _promise_ to return you in one piece."

Klaus' promises mean nothing.

"Do you want to contain the mess that is my brother or not, Bonnie?" Klaus asks, cocking his head to the side.

Bonnie sighs. "I have to call Tyler and Jeremy first."

* * *

"You're going where with _who_?"

Tyler didn't answer his phone, but Jeremy answered his. And she can hear Tyler in the background, asking Jeremy what she's saying. He relays the message.

"She's doing _what_?" Tyler says, his voice louder and closer now.

Bonnie sighs and looks toward Klaus standing alongside his car with his arms crossed and his sunglasses perched on his face. She doesn't need to see his eyes to know he's staring at her, and probably eavesdropping, too.

There's some shuffling on the other end, and then Tyler's voice is even clearer. "Bonnie, you were just supposed to go to his _house_."

"I know," she says, "but the daggers are in North Carolina so I'm going." She's managed to convince herself that it's worth it.

Tyler lets out an exasperated sigh. "Are you sure you want to go? It's _Klaus_."

The Original's lips twitch upward into a smile at the mention of his name.

"I'll be okay," she promises. "I'll be back late tonight."

Tyler sighs again. At least he knows there's no sense in arguing. "Okay. Call if you need us. I'm putting Jeremy back on."

Jeremy says, "Are you _sure_?", and Bonnie smiles.

"Yes. It'll be okay. He'll be on his _best_ behavior."

"My very best, love," Klaus calls.

Bonnie doesn't try to disguise her disdain. "I'll see you when I get home."

Jeremy still doesn't sound happy, but he agrees. "Love you," he adds, so fast that his words run together.

It's strange to hear him say it so casually, after it was such a big deal at the fundraiser. And neither of them has said much about it one another since. But it makes her stomach do a familiar flip, and she refuses to look at Klaus, knowing exactly what kind of expression she'll find on his face. "Love you, too."

When she hangs up, Bonnie doesn't even get a moment to picture Jeremy and Tyler back at home, lounging around the living room and doing homework, worrying about her, before Klaus speaks. "Are you quite finished? I'd like to get a move on."

Welcome to Mystic Falls, time for a road trip.

* * *

Bonnie closes her eyes, cutting off her view of the passing landscape. Highways are boring. She forgot just how boring with the same sparse view for miles. They've been on the road for a little more than an hour, and it's a comfortable drive. If she keeps her gaze firmly fixed on everything outside the car, she can try to forget who's driving. But even that gets tedious, and the darkness behind her eyelids is more enjoyable. Klaus apparently has no musical preference whatsoever and they've been listening to silence. That's not so bad either, not until he decides to break it.

"Why did you kill them?"

Bonnie opens her eyes and glimpses a mile marker as they pass it. "That's a popular question," she mutters to herself, refusing to look at him.

"I assume the answer doesn't share that status."

He assumes right.

"So," Klaus says casually, "why did you do it? How did you wrap your morality around killing Damon and Stefan?"

"Easily," Bonnie snaps. "Why did you kill all the people you've killed, Klaus? Were they annoying? An inconvenience? Just in the wrong place at the wrong time?" She turns her head to look at him and finds him staring right at her, barely looking at the road. "It was funny when Stefan tried to give me a morality lesson, right before we killed him, but you doing it is just hilarious."

Klaus smirks and turns his eyes back on the road. Then he says, "Laugh away, love, but answer the question."

"They deserved it," Bonnie says. _So do you, _she adds mentally.

"Shall we change subjects?"

"Shall we stop talking?" Bonnie counters.

"No," Klaus says. "I have another question. It's been bothering me, to tell you the truth."

"Well, please share," Bonnie says. "God only knows how I _hate _when you're bothered."

Klaus smiles tightly. "How does it work? Your relationships with them? When I asked Tyler once, he wasn't very forthcoming. Granted, I was a bit insensitive at the time, but I am truly curious. How do you manage it? Both of them?"

Bonnie doesn't answer. Instead she turns her head back to the road and watches another mile marker come and go.

"Do you love them?" Klaus persists. "Both of them? One more than the other? I know you and Jeremy have history, but Tyler is shiny and new, isn't he? And he's never broken your heart. Or is that precisely why you're stuck on Jeremy? No one ever forgets their first love and all that."

"Why do you care?"

Klaus shrugs. "Why don't they care that they have to share you? That they will never have all of you? That there will be a section of you with the other at all times? And if you can share the two of them, why not add a fourth? Or a fifth? Why not a whole harem?"

Bonnie wishes she could have blanked out before he said the word 'harem', but she's still listening.

"Do they love you that much?"

Jeremy certainly loves her but whatever Tyler's feelings her, whatever name they can be given, at least she knows they're real. Just as real as hers are. Maybe his exist only for her but even though hers are alongside what she feels for Jeremy, those are real, too. She tries to think if she loves one more than the other, if she loves them both. Last night she just wanted to be closer to Tyler in every way, and she wanted him to be close to her. She just wanted to feel him, to relax into him - into _them _and the perfect thing they are.

Because they are perfect. Her and Tyler. Her and Jeremy. Her and Tyler and Jeremy. Perfect.

"Well, Bonnie?" Klaus says.

She takes in a breath before turning to look at him. "Klaus," she says, "do me a favor, as I'm doing you one right now. _Don't_ talk about Tyler and Jeremy."

She falls silent after that. So does he. Another couple hours later and they're in Wilmington, Bonnie using her cell phone to navigate them toward Magnolia Ave. The street is dark, but she can make out the street sign. The house it lit up. Clay's at home tonight.

"Let me do the talking, love," Klaus says as they get out of the car.

Bonnie rolls her eyes as she follows him up the porch steps, wondering if Klaus thinks he's charming or intimidating enough to get Clay to hand over the daggers without a second thought. If it was her, she wouldn't give Klaus a thing, but she'll let him take the lead for now, until Clay's lack of interest in him is made clear.

Klaus knocks politely on the front door, peering through the window to see if he can see past the curtains. It takes a few minutes, but Bonnie hears locks being twisted on the door. When it's opened, Clay stands before them, staring directly at Klaus as if he can see him. "Yes?"

"Are you Clay?" Klaus asks immediately.

"I am."

"I believe you're acquainted with my brother," Klaus says. "Elijah."

Clay doesn't speak.

"He left some items in your care," Klaus continues. "I've come to collect them."

Clay blinks. "She can come in. You stay here." Then he turns and goes back into the house disappearing around a corner.

That went faster than she thought it would.

Bonnie steps forward, unable to hide her smug smirk. She glances back at Klaus as she follows Clay inside, and her smirk turns into a full smile at the sight of his grimace. This would be the second time today he's been forced to wait outside while she works. "I'll be right back," she says closing the door in his face. She remembers the layout of Clay's home from Elijah's memories, and isn't surprised to see that Clay has seated himself in his dining room where the table is still messy.

"A Bennett," Clay says. His eyes follow her as she pulls out a chair and sits.

"Yes," she confirms. "My name's Bonnie."

"You keep interesting company, Bonnie."

"I'm not the only one," she says. "How well do you know Elijah?"

"Well enough," Clay says. He seems to be examining her somehow. He can't see her, but he knows where she is at all times. "He entrusted me with the daggers, after all."

"I need them," Bonnie tells him.

"_You_ need them? Or _he_ needs them?" He nods in the direction of the front door where Klaus is still waiting, probably listening unless Clay has spelled his house. She suspects he has.

"We have a common problem," Bonnie explains. "We both need them." She opens her mouth to explain about Kol, but Clay holds up his hand.

"I won't waste anymore of your time," he says. "The daggers are gone."

Bonnie leans forward, her elbows on the table. "What do you mean?" Clay swore to Elijah they'd be kept safe. Elijah may interpret his promises differently, keeping just enough wiggle room to screw someone over, but Clay had been sincere when he said he would protect them. Elijah was arrogant, but if he thought for a moment he couldn't trust Clay, he wouldn't have left the daggers with him.

"Someone else came looking," Clay explains. "I gave them to him."

"_Why_? Elijah-"

"Is hosting a dagger of his own in his heart," the old man finishes. "Besides, I had my reasons."

"Who came for them?" Bonnie sighs. "When?" There still may be time to get them back. With her and Klaus both going after them, they'll have a good chance of getting their hands on them.

"Elijah's other brother, Kol. He left here about half an hour ago," he continues, with a light shrug of indifference. "He said he recalled Elijah mentioning my family once. He found me."

"Why did you give the daggers to him?" Bonnie asks. Her hands have curled into fists, tight with frustration and disbelief. Kol has the daggers, the daggers they need to stop him. He has them, and who knows what he'll do with them. "Did he threaten you or something?" If she could handle Kol, Clay wouldn't have had any problems with him.

"On the contrary," Clay says, leaning back in his chair. "We had a very good discussion. I gave them to him willingly, and he was very grateful. He was concerned his siblings may attempt to use a dagger on him?"

"Did he tell you _why_?" Bonnie asks. "Kol's dangerous. He nearly killed me."

Clay nods his head as she speaks. "We discussed it all. He was quite forthcoming, and without an ounce of encouragement from me." He wiggles his eyebrows in amusement. Then he grows serious. "He told me what you plan to do."

"And what is that?" Bonnie asks curiously, folding her arms. In what world are her plans worse than those of an unhinged Original?

"You're searching for Silas' tomb," Clay answers, "where a cure to vampirism is buried. With Silas, within Silas..." He shrugs his shoulders. "You will raise him."

Bonnie readies herself to explain. "I-"

"_Don't_," Clay says. "Don't do it. Pursuing this any further is a grave mistake. I've met witches with your name before. They have all been powerful - incredibly powerful - but never stupid. Don't break that chain now."

Bonnie huffs quietly. "That was one hell of a compliment."

"Good manners won't save your life," Clay snaps, "or keep this world from tumbling into chaos. Silas is more than what you think he is."

"And what is he?"

"Far more dangerous than an Original hybrid or his brothers," Clay says. "If you fear them-"

"I don't."

He cracks a smile, but it's a small one. "You should fear Silas."

"Legends aren't always true," Bonnie says. And Silas has plenty surrounding him. When they find him, they could end up with a teddy bear for all they know.

"Nor are they always false," he adds. "I've been around for a long time, Bonnie, and I can tell you that Silas is not to be taken so lightly. Witches have feared him for centuries." He laughs coolly under his breath. "Some have even worshiped him. You think all of us are just superstitious? We're _witches_. We are all made of superstition. There are plenty about us, and aren't at least some of them true? Why should Silas be any different? In any case," he says, rising to his feet, "I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"What is it exactly that you think Silas will do?" Bonnie asks as Clay inches his way toward the door. He turns back around.

"He will raise the dead," he says, supporting himself in the doorway. "An ancient witch, Qetisiyah, also of your line - have you heard of her?"

"Yes."

"Well, there's something," he says, returning to his chair and easing down into it again. "You know the story? Or her and Silas? And Silas' lady love?"

"Qetsiyah killed her."

"Silas wants her back," Clay says. "And he will do anything to have her. He will lower the veil to have her, but to do so he needs to complete-"

"An Expression triangle," Bonnie says. "I know."

Clay puts on a faux impressed face. "Well, good for you. From what I've heard, Silas is already two sacrifices down. There's one more to go."

"It's said Silas will just raise them again," Bonnie says, "those that died for him."

"It's _unnatural_," Clay repeats, "to raise things that have died. What comes back is never what you hope it will be, it is never what it was. It is something dark, and it will belong to _him_. The dead must stay dead, if only to remain who they are."

Bonnie makes a circle with the tip of her fingers, dragging it along the tabletop. "What do you mean 'it will belong to him?'"

"I've been told you have experience with sire bonds," Clay says. "Think of that. Only less...clean."

A bunch of sired resurrected people?

"But he just wants the woman he loves," Bonnie says. "He wouldn't bother with the others."

"Silas has always thirsted for power," he says. "More and more and more of it. He was a witch, a master of this world, but he craved immortality. He wants _everything_. And a loyal band of the resurrected? Power. And then what will he do with them? An all-powerful witch with an all-powerful army of the dead? What won't be able to do?"

She looks down at the table and swallows. "Some think he's a vampire."

Clay smiles. "Some."

"I need the cure," Bonnie says. "I need it _badly_." She tries to tell him with her eyes, impress upon him its importance. If they don't get this cure, it will all have been for nothing. Killing Jenny in the road, sending Tyler's mom away, it will be for nothing. They will never escape Klaus, he will never pay for all he's done.

"I know you believe that," Clay says. "Your company is getting impatient."

She doesn't doubt it.

"It's his default setting," Bonnie sighs, waving it off with her hand. "He can wait. What if you're wrong about Silas? What if I don't need to raise him to get the cure? What if he's not going to do anything you think he is?"

"What if I'm right about Silas?" Clay asks. "What if you do need to raise him to get the cure? And what if he's going to do _everything_ I think he is?"

* * *

"Finally," Klaus says standing up as Bonnie comes out of the house. She closes the door behind her, and looks away from him as examines her. "Where are the daggers?" he demands, eyeing her empty hands.

"Gone," she says. "Kol beat us to it."

His face darkens. Bonnie makes out the gleam of his teeth as he lets out a frustrated yell, bringing his hand down on the wooden porch railing. It splinters into pieces, and she steps back to avoid them. "What the hell are you doing?" she snaps.

Klaus doesn't respond. Instead he steps around her to approach the front door. He's about to put his foot through it when Bonnie seizes hold of him with her magic, spinning him back around to face her. His eyes still flicker with rage. God, he really knows how to throw a temper tantrum. And this one might wake up all the neighbors who will surely come to see what all the fuss is about. And Bonnie doesn't want to see anyone getting their necks broken tonight. "What do you think you're doing, witch?"

"We're leaving."

"He-"

"Gave the daggers to Kol," she finishes. "He's on his way back to Mystic Falls right now. Once we get there, we can get them from him. Our problem is with Kol, _not_ Clay."

Klaus turns to face her, stepping as close to her as she'll allow. Her magic folds around her, creating a field that clings to her skin. If he were to touch her, he would find himself stopped barely millimeters from her skin. "Why not both?" he questions, narrowing his eyes. In the dark, it's hard to make him out, but the porch light comes on, shining on them both.

They both look to see Clay framed in the door, now open, with a grave though determined expression.

Bonnie turns Klaus' head toward her, narrowing her eyes. "We're leaving."

Klaus lets out an aggravated breath. When he glances back to Clay again, it seems to make him angrier, and he yells again. "Find your own way home, love," he hisses. He stomps down the porch steps to get into his car. Before he pulls away, she breaks the windshield with her mind, and leaves an inconvenient crack that stretches from one end of the glass to the other. Klaus fixes her with a hard stare. As the car goes down the street, tires squealing against the asphalt, Bonnie hears Clay step out onto the porch."Your ride left you," he states.

"Yes, he did," she says glumly.

"I can send you back," Clay offers. "With the two of us and some channeling, I'm sure we can get you back home just fine. You'll make faster time than him."

Bonnie smiles and wonders if he knows she is. "Sounds good to me."

* * *

Bonnie appears on her front porch, shrouded in the darkness, taking in the silence of the street. She fishes out her keys, thanking Clay silently as she unlocks the door. When she goes in, it's dark except for the flicker of the television screen, illuminating Jeremy's face in pale blue and white. He's on the couch with a blanket covering his legs, his face calm and impassive, lost in sleep. She doesn't know why it's so good to see him. It's not as if she didn't know she'd be returning tonight, where Tyler and Jeremy would be in the same condition as when she left them. Still, there's an ache in her chest when she sees him. She approaches him quietly, perching next to him. Her fingers are inches from his face when he opens his eyes.

For a moment, he looks bewildered, but then his face relaxes into a lazy smile. "You're back."

"I'm back," she says, letting her fingers land on his cheek. Jeremy smiles at her hand.

"Klaus didn't give you any trouble?"

"Well, he left me there," Bonnie says, putting her hand in her lap, "but I had some help getting back so it's fine. But we didn't get the daggers."

His smile melts from his face. "Shit. Where are they?"

"Kol has them."

Jeremy groans and rakes his fingers through his hair. "Shit," he repeats.

"Shit," Bonnie agrees. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"Caroline came by."

"She did?"

"She wanted to talk," Jeremy explains, "but when we said you weren't here she said she'd come back. She wanted it to be all of us."

Bonnie swallows as she strokes his collarbone. "I wish I'd been here." She would have much rather been working things through with Caroline than spending quality time with Klaus for no reason.

"Tyler asleep?"

"He'd wake up if you woke him," Jeremy points out.

"I'll let him rest."

"Wanna crawl in with me?" He lifts the blanket invitingly and grins when she takes off her jacket, setting it in the chair along with her bag. She has to lay mostly on top of him, but he doesn't seem to mind as their legs tangle together and she rests her head against his chest. Jeremy reaches for the remote to turn off the TV, and she raises her lips to his for a quick kiss as the dark engulfs them. His lips are warm and even though the kiss is brief, she feels it everywhere. Her stomach does that flipping thing again. He falls asleep fast, even as Bonnie stays awake, thinking of what Clay told her.

Power hungry Silas or not, this is the only way they have to kill Klaus. They can't walk away.


	19. Group Effort

**Thanks for reading and reviewing, as always.**

* * *

Group Effort

Bonnie wakes up with Jeremy's arms wrapped around her waist, holding her in place on the couch. If she shifts at all she'll end up falling off, but he's mastered sleeping on it. Even with her there, he's perfectly secure. She inhales against the hard plane of his chest as she stares across the room, toward the black screen of the television where slants of sunlight cut across and illuminate the dust motes floating across the room.

At first she thinks they'll have to get up, go to school, do work, but then she remembers it's a Saturday, and she closes her eyes again. She doesn't realize he's awake until she feels him shift slightly, one of his hands coming up to glide against her shoulder blades.

"Jeremy," she says. He's incredibly comfortable to wake up on top of.

"Hmm?"

Bonnie raises her eyes to his eyes and pulls herself up enough to kiss him. She can feel him smiling against her mouth, and she kisses him harder, dragging her teeth along his bottom lip. It all escalates very quickly, his hands sliding lower to grip her butt then up beneath her shirt, and her pressing herself as close to him as she can, insistent on feeling more of him.

Bonnie slides her hand easily into his sweatpants to wrap around him, and she smiles when he groans into her neck. She leaves a kiss on his cheek as she pulls away, using her other hand to push his sweatpants down past his hips. He raises himself off the couch enough for them to fall to his ankles, and then she's following after them, dropping to her knees.

Jeremy always gets a goofy look on her face when she does this, and she doesn't need to look to know it's there. The light pressure of his fingers sliding through her hair and resting against her shoulder is indicative of his enjoying it.

He doesn't get to finish, and Bonnie doesn't even get to start because someone raps on the door with insistent knocks, loud enough to fill the whole house. Jeremy groans in annoyance as Bonnie pulls away from him. She knows it's an Original at her door. Only _they_ are capable of knocking at the exact wrong moments and with an excess of arrogance. Briefly Bonnie wonders which. She can't think of one she'd actually like to see. She wipes at the corners of her mouth, adjusting her shirt while Jeremy pulls his pants back up.

"Later," he promises, pecking her on the lips before busying himself with folding up blankets and sheets.

Bonnie approaches the door to peek through the small window. Rebekah's blue eyes stare back at her, incredibly close. "Good morning, darling," she calls. "Excuse my interruption."

Bonnie yanks open the door to glare at her. "Were you-"

"Of course not," Rebekah says. "That's rude." Rude or not, she inclines her head to look over Bonnie's shoulder at Jeremy. She shoots him a smile Bonnie knows to be mocking. When Rebekah turns her attention back to her, her smile widens. "Care to step outside for a chat?"

Bonnie sighs as she does, closing the door.

"My brother was in quite the mood when he returned from your little adventure last night," Rebekah says. "He says Kol has the daggers now and is doing who knows what with them." She leans against the railing, staring out at the street with her back to Bonnie. When she turns around, she has to brush loose strands of hair from her face. "He said you spoke for a long time with the witch. What about?"

"Why he gave the daggers to Kol in the first place," Bonnie says. "They both think Silas is going to destroy this world."

Rebekah rolls her eyes. "On that again, are we?"

"We never got off."

"It's a ridiculous story," she says. "One told to children to keep them up at night and remind them to be on their best behavior." She squints at Bonnie and takes a step toward her, peering at her curiously. "Did the witch frighten you, Bonnie? Did he make you doubt your resolve?"

"No," Bonnie answers. "We're getting the cure. We're just probably going to get something else in the process that we don't want. Like an army of dead people under Silas' control."

Rebekah looks at her pointedly, with an annoyed pout. "A _story_." Her pout transforms into a smile. "As long as we're getting the cure, I'm not concerned. I've been around for a long time, Bonnie. I know a myth when I hear one."

Bonnie laughs to herself. The Originals don't know much of anything, but they never fail to believe they know everything. "What about Kol?"

"Nik and I are handling that. We'll have Kol daggered by this time tomorrow morning. Maybe sooner. I'll let you know how it all ends up."

She sounds so sure.

"Rest assured, Bonnie," Rebekah goes on. "We're all going to be very happy when all this is done. I'll let you get back to your..." Her smile returns, more sly than before, "...breakfast." She turns and walks down the steps, departing down the street at an eerily human pace.

When Bonnie returns to the house, Jeremy's gone, and she can hear the shower running upstairs. They won't be picking up where they left off. She grabs her phone and steps back out onto the porch where she perches on the steps to dial Lucy's number.

"Bonnie," Lucy says cheerily. In the background, Bonnie can hear more voices. People talking loudly over one another and loud music.

"Are you at a bar?" she asks. "It's not even ten yet."

Lucy laughs, and Bonnie hears the voices die off. She's moved away from all the noise. "So? How's it going?"

"It's going," Bonnie sighs. "I need to ask you something. Ever heard of Silas?"

"Who hasn't?"

"Me until recently."

"Well, you're new," Lucy says. "Everything I've heard has been glorified speculation. Maybe witch, maybe vampire, maybe both. Immortal who got what he deserved from one of our ancestors. Not to mention all the miscellaneous crap that gets spewed between witches. I guarantee you there's someone out there who believes Silas is the Tooth Fairy."

"So you're not a believer?"

"In the Tooth Fairy? No. Not Silas, either."

Bonnie wiggles her toes and watches them tap against the harsh wood of the porch. "I met someone who does believe. If I go for this cure, I might have to raise Silas, and if I raise Silas, I destroy the world."

Lucy laughs and the sound of it is almost enough to make Bonnie think everything Clay told her was ridiculous. "Bonnie, please."

"Do you think there's a chance, even a small one?"

Lucy sighs heavily on the other end. "I've met some believers over the years. And they _really_ believe it, but lots of people believe things, Bonnie. Kids believe in Santa."

Are they going to compare Silas to the Easter Bunny next?

"Yeah, well Santa's not going to raise an army from the dead," Bonnie points out. "Santa gives gifts."

"Santa doesn't give anything because he's not real," Lucy says. "And neither is Silas."

"What if he is?"

"He's not."

"But if he is?"

Lucy lets out another sigh, this one more frustrated than the last. "Do you want to stop looking for the cure?"

"No," Bonnie says without any hesitation. "We need it."

Klaus must die, and this is how.

"Have you talked to your boys about it?"

"They're not _my_ boys," Bonnie says, curling a strand of hair around her finger. She lets it go and watches it bounce out of sight.

Lucy lets out a bark of laughter. "Yes, they are."

"I haven't told them yet. I got home late."

"Well, ask them what they think," Lucy says, "and if you three decide that you're worried about this _fictional _character then call it quits. No harm, no foul."

But Tyler and Jeremy will say the same thing: They have to kill Klaus. But there's so much they don't know, so much riding on this.

"Still there?" Lucy says.

"Yeah."

"Well, there's something I wanted to tell you."

Bonnie straightens up a little, intrigued. "What?"

"I'm here with your mom. Well, she's at the bar getting us some refills," Lucy says, "but she's here. And I think she'd really like to talk to you. So, can I put her on?"

Bonnie considers it. She's starting to think Abby and Lucy are hanging out, from all the time they've been spending with one another.

Then she says, "No. I'll talk to you later."

Lucy sounds a little disappointed, but she doesn't push it. Bonnie stays outside for a few more minutes, watching as the clouds part to allow some more sunlight to fall onto the street. It's a warm day. Soon that garden in the back won't need her help to grow. Staring at the metallic surface of her phone, Bonnie thinks she may wear a dress today.

One of the boys pulls open the front door, and Bonnie swivels around to see which.

Tyler.

"Hey, stranger," he says with a big smile, leaning against the frame. "Feels like I haven't seen you in forever."

It's been more than twelve hours since she last saw Tyler at the Grill, and it does feel like an inordinate amount of time has passed. She's gotten so used to seeing him so often, not seeing him is jarring.

"Who were you talking to?" he asks, nodding to her phone in her hands.

"Lucy," Bonnie answers standing up. "I have something to tell you."

* * *

"So if he's real then we're fucked," Tyler says.

"Not _fucked_," Bonnie says. "Well, kind of."

They're gathered around the kitchen table together, pondering Bonnie's news, everything Clay had to say about Silas and whatever the hell he wants. Jeremy's hair is wet from his shower where he was pulled from when Bonnie came back in, having something urgent to share with them.

"I don't want to stop looking," Bonnie says. "I want to kill Klaus, and this is the only way to do it. We can't just stop. I mean, we all believe the cure is real, right? It's there. We just have to go get it."

"And Silas might be there with yet," Jeremy says, "waiting to be risen so he can do this raising the dead thing."

"Maybe," Bonnie admits. "But we need the cure."

She doesn't need to remind them.

"Do you guys want to stop?" she asks.

Tyler can't imagine calling it quits after all this time. Stopping seems like another win for Klaus, and who was to say Klaus wouldn't insist on them continuing anyway?

"No," he says. "We're set on this now. Even if we wanted to stop we couldn't. Klaus and Rebekah won't let us."

Neither of them believes Silas is a threat, and they have their own reasons for wanting it. If Bonnie's the only way to do this, if Jeremy is the only hunter they have around, they're stuck. Rebekah said so herself: they're there and gift wrapped.

"And I don't want to," Tyler adds.

"Me either, "Bonnie says.

Tyler and Bonnie look to Jeremy who raises his eyebrows. "Is this a vote?"

"If you don't want to do, we won't do it," she says.

Jeremy rolls his eyes. "Well, I _want_ to do it. It's just that if this thing comes back to bite us, are we gonna be ready for that? He's a big-bad-immortal-witch-vampire-guy and we're just us. Do you think we can handle if it comes to that?"

"You don't?" Tyler asks.

"I think we're badass," Jeremy says which makes all three of them laugh a little. "But are we _that _badass?"

Compared to everything else they've had to deal with, how bad can Silas be? They've survived this long, killed Damon and Stefan, survived massacres of hybrid packs, Jeremy's death count is probably in double digits by now. And Bonnie is...Bonnie. It took one badass witch to put him to sleep in the first place. Bonnie's one of those. And Tyler and Jeremy aren't slouches. They're the hybrid, the witch, and the hunter. They can handle Silas. .

"If it does come back to bite us," Bonnie begins.

"It won't be any different from anything else," Tyler finishes. "We're always getting screwed by something."

"Is that supposed to be encouraging?" Jeremy questions.

"A little."

"I'm just saying we've handled ourselves pretty well this far, right?" Tyler says.

"Right," Bonnie says.

"Do you believe it?" Jeremy asks, looking to Bonnie. "The Silas stuff?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Shane believes it, Kol believes it, Clay believes it. Plus all the people we _don't_ know. All we can do is keep doing what we're doing, and see for ourselves what Silas is. We _need_ the cure. So we have to go get it. We can't kill Klaus without it, so it's this or we let him live."

"We're not letting him live," Tyler says.

"Well," Jeremy says. "We're not gonna get anywhere without this Mark being finished." He shows Bonnie his arm. Tyler sees nothing, but Bonnie reaches out to feel it, drawing her fingers along the invisible lines.

"So we go hunting," Tyler says. "Tonight."

* * *

It's going to be a group lure this time. Jeremy wanted to mix it up, and it was always boring, waiting for Bonnie to send some vampire out there for staking while Jeremy and Tyler stealthily dispatch the others. Bonnie's dealing with the flirtatious bartender while Jeremy and Tyler sit in a corner booth together, pretending to drink beer. Tyler's a friendly guy, when he wants to be, and there's a whole alpha male thing going on that Tyler plays well. Vampires, three of them, come over to laugh with them with a few well placed words from Tyler. When one of them catches sight of Bonnie at the bar, looking the most like herself as she's ever looked on one of their hunting trips, he gives her a wink. She's a little shorter than usual and her eyes are a cool grey, but Jeremy can see Bonnie beneath the lighter hair, the thin nose, and the darker skin.

She picked them out as soon as they came in. The other vampires in the bar didn't meet their criteria, and they were thinking of calling it quits before these three wandered in. Bonnie was getting sick of the bartender, lamenting her position from across the room, her voice echoing in Jeremy's and Tyler's heads. The three vampires were loud and obnoxious. It was hard to see the bloodstains on their dark shirts until they got closer. Tyler said he could smell it: fresh blood from a fresh kill. A little more than an hour old. Despite that Bonnie said they were still hungry.

Jeremy wondered if a vampire was ever full.

Bonnie's stare lands on the winking vampire, and she spins on her barstool, bare legs kicking.

The vampire waves to her, motioning her over. His name may be Bryce, but Jeremy can't remember. When she hops off, the skirt of her dress swings around her knees. She squeezes into the booth beside Tyler. "Hello, boys."

It's nice, making this a group effort this time around. Jeremy suspects Bonnie was bored of doing it on her own all the time.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" Bryce asks. He's the smallest of his posse, but he's the leader. They've taken up one half of the booth, Jeremy closest to them. He could stake the one next to him right now if he wanted. Bryce is across from Tyler, looking slightly irritated that Bonnie chose to sidle up next to him instead.

Bonnie cocks her head to the side and shoots him a smile. If she was wearing her own mouth, her own smile, it would probably be the same one she gives to Jeremy sometimes. "What's yours?"

"Bryce."

So Jeremy was right.

"I'm Lucy," Bonnie says smoothly.

"It's nice to meet you, Lucy," Bryce says. Jeremy can practically see the wheels turning. A beautiful girl, coming willingly to their table. A little compulsion here and she'll follow them anywhere.

Tyler's got the same idea. He reaches for Bonnie's hand to draw her eyes to his. "Why don't we get out of here?" he says. "Make this party more private?"

Bonnie's got her compelled face down: the casual dazed look, the appeasing smile she gives. "Okay," she says.

"Okay," Tyler echoes. "Come on, guys." He slaps some cash down on the table, and when he looks up at them again his eyes are red and surrounded by prominent veins. Bryce and his friends are suddenly very interested in this party, and they stand to follow Tyler and Bonnie toward the exit. Jeremy goes last, feeling the stake held in the waistband of his jeans, hidden beneath his t-shirt. He makes sure it remains out of sight as he follows them out.

Tyler and Bonnie are holding hands as he guides her down the street, Bryce and his friends in tow. Jeremy tries to remember their names, but gives up. Soon it won't matter.

Tyler and Bonnie are walking leisurely, but Bryce and the other two are anxious, desiring a quick kill. But Bonnie is latched to Tyler's side, leaning into him and smiling up at him as they go. Whatever Tyler's saying it must be the perfect blend of benign and threatening, perfect for Bryce but not so good for Bonnie, if she was the girl these vampires think she is. They step beneath the light of a streetlamp before Tyler inclines his head toward an alley they're passing. Bonnie nods and allows him to pull her that way.

Jeremy goes for the closest one first, the same one who'd been next to him in the booth. He's a bit taller than Jeremy with greasy looking hair pulled back into a ponytail. Distracted by Bonnie and her human body and human blood, he doesn't sense the threat of Jeremy's approach. The stake punctures his back, punching through flesh and blood to reach the heart. With a thud he lands on the ground in a graying heap. Bryce turns to make a run for it, steering around the body of his comrade as it bursts into flames. Recognition flares in his eyes as he glances back in Bonnie's direction, where she stands at Tyler's side, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

At least Bryce is smart enough to know when he's outmatched.

The second one isn't. He lunges for Jeremy, fangs bared. Tyler doesn't feel the need to intervene. He steps out of the way as Jeremy grapples with the vampire. When Jeremy gets the stake into his heart, Tyler and Bonnie are both leaning against the wall, looking on casually.

"One left," Bonnie says, nodding toward Bryce.

He's been stopped at the mouth of the alley, his progress impeded by a transparent barrier. The light of the streetlights doesn't cross it, cutting off suspiciously where it begins. Similarly, the glow of the burning vampires, the second now engulfed in flames, doesn't seem to escape the alleyway.

They're getting this thing down to a science.

"Let's make it fast," Bonnie says. "I'm hungry. Can we actually eat at the next bar?"

They have a list. Three more to hit tonight. At least three vampires at each, new faces for each bar they hit. Then they're repeating it all again tomorrow.

And Jeremy's kind of hungry himself.

Fast it is.

* * *

Bonnie leads them into the house, throwing her bag down on the chair and collapsing on the sofa. Her dress rises up her thighs, and she pulls it down. When it just rises back up again, she leaves it. Tyler and Jeremy fall down on either side of her.

"That was fun," she says, letting out a breathy sigh.

Three bars turned into four bars turned into five bars. Fifteen dead vampires.

"Let's see it," Bonnie says, leaning her head back on the couch, looking to Jeremy expectantly.

He shoves up the sleeve of his shirt so Bonnie can examine the Mark. It's reached his shoulder now at least. But it took fifteen vampires for it to get there. Fifteen more tomorrow might get it past there. But then where does it go?

Tyler doesn't bother looking. But he says, "Well?"

"It's grown," Bonnie says. "It's getting there. Well, wherever it's supposed to go."

"Wherever that is," Jeremy says, pulling his sleeve back down.

"We'll see what it looks like tomorrow," Bonnie says. She looks at him warmly, and he smiles. The kiss she gives him is a peck. or at least it is at first. Sweet, chaste. But when she draws back, she's still looking at his lips, with a gaze so hard it makes him want to hide himself. But then she's kissing him again, and he's glad he didn't.

"Want me to go?" Tyler asks from the other end of the couch.

Bonnie breaks their kiss to turn back to Tyler. "No," she tells him. "Stay."

Jeremy glimpses Tyler's muted smile before Bonnie's looking at him again, leaning toward him to kiss him again. She's so warm and so small and so pretty in her dress. Even though she's so much tinier, especially between the two of them, he feels like he's not touching enough of her. Her dress is thin enough that he can feel the warmth of her skin through it as he holds her waist, and he still wants to be underneath it to feel more.

Jeremy doesn't know where Tyler goes, where he's kissing Bonnie because Jeremy has her lips. Or she has his. Or _something_. Either way they're kissing. His eyes are closed, and he doesn't care what Tyler's doing as long as Bonnie likes it. Still, Jeremy allows himself a little peek. Tyler's fused his mouth to the side of Bonnie's throat where his tongue slides along her skin and leaves a wet trail.

With a smile, Bonnie withdraws from Jeremy, pecking his lips before turning to Tyler who smiles as her lips touch his. One of his hands slides up her leg to stop at her knee. He squeezes. Jeremy eases closer, his chest to Bonnie's back, as he drops a kiss onto her shoulder.

It's the bar all over again, what seems like forever ago. The three of them causing a scene on Bonnie's birthday. The hybrid, the witch, and the hunter.

That was a good night.

"You've got some blood on your dress," Tyler says suddenly. Jeremy's gaze falls to where Tyler fingers the small section of gray fabric. There's a thin, dark red line of blood belonging to one of the vampires they killed tonight.

Bonnie reaches to feel it herself, running her fingers over it.

Jeremy doesn't know why that turns him on so much. He takes her hand and entwines their fingers before leaning in to speak into her ear. "Take it off."

He's surprised to hear himself say it, there where Tyler can hear, where Tyler is the one with a hand wound around the hem of Bonnie's dress. Her stillness tells him she is, too. Her fingers tighten on his. Tyler meets Jeremy's eyes, his wide, questioning.

This kissing they've done before. It was weird then, but it's not so strange now. It's just them. They're all friends, but this is different. This will be a step further, so much further. But it doesn't feel wrong, not strange. It's unusual, unfamiliar, but it's not a bad feeling.

They're all friends.

Bonnie squeezes Jeremy's fingers again. "Should I?" she asks. She's talking to Tyler. His hand hasn't moved from her knee.

Tyler looks at them, his eyes sliding from one to the other. Time seems to crawl as he considers it.

Bonnie's going to say any minute to forget it, never mind, it was a stupid idea. She's going to, Jeremy can feel it. He can also feel that she doesn't really think that, but if she tells them both to leave, tells them to go back to their separate corners and they'll see each other in the morning, he will go. Her hand is shaking, just a little, in his. He wants to tell her it's okay, wants to tell them both that it's fine. If they want to, he wants to.

It's just been such a good night.

"Yeah," Tyler says, nodding his head. "Take it off."

Bonnie's hand tightens like a vise, its tremor a thing of the past. She grins as she leans to kiss Tyler. When she pulls back, his smile is as big as hers. Whatever hesitation there was before is gone. She bites down on her bottom lip as she says, "Let's go to my room."


	20. Both

Both

"I dreamt about this once," Bonnie says, her voice a murmur against Jeremy's mouth.

He draws back, an eyebrow quirked in amusement. "_Really_?"

Tyler laughs from behind her, where his fingers are teasingly slow as they rub between her legs.

"Just once."

It's just like that dream, her on top of Jeremy with their mouths fused together, his back to her headboard as her fingers drag a sporadic trail through his hair, and Tyler fingering her. It's better than that dream. This is real. All three of them, in her room, in her bed, naked and kissing.

Her dress is gone, though she doesn't know where it went. She can't even remember who it was that ended up taking it off. It may have been Tyler, but now she can't be sure. It may have been Jeremy after all. All she can remember clearly is two pairs of hands gliding across her body, two pairs of lips kissing her, and two voices letting out low murmurs as they undress.

They'd barely gotten into her room before Bonnie was reaching for the zipper of her dress, and Jeremy and Tyler were kissing her and pulling off their shirts, undoing belt buckles and buttons and pulling down zippers and kicking off shoes. And then they were on her bed which seemed both very large and very small with all three of them on it, with Tyler and Jeremy kissing different parts of her, their hands maneuvering around the other's.

If she doesn't let her magic lead her, if she closes her eyes and lets her mind drift, she can play a little game. Which of them is touching her? After awhile it becomes hard to differentiate between them by body temperature alone. Tyler's body warms the more it presses against her, and Jeremy is warm no matter what. When they kiss her, it becomes hard to tell which is which, and her mind is reeling with every flick of their tongues and peck of their lips. She knows who is who when they kiss her mouth. Tyler's tongue technique is enough to identify him, and the pressure Jeremy applies to her mouth is something like a science.

They are both truly gifted in the art of kissing.

And now they are here, adapting that sex dream she had what seemed like an eon ago.

Jeremy laughs lightly against her lips. "We didn't finish what we started this morning," he says, letting his tongue travel along her lips.

"I know," she says remembering.

"Fucking Originals," Jeremy says, and she laughs as she tilts her head back so he can press kisses to her throat.

"I think she was watching us," Bonnie says, remembering Rebekah's pale blue eye in the window.

"Kinky," Tyler comments. His fingers twist inside of her, hitting just the right spot, and she sucks in a breath through her teeth.

"We're a pretty good show," Jeremy says before his lips find her mouth again. "Wanna finish?"

God, she really, _really_ does.

But.

"Later," she says. "We can't." There's a flicker of disappointment across Jeremy's face, but she lowers her mouth to his and hopes that will make up for it. She wants them both to kiss her during this, and Tyler may not want to after she's had Jeremy in her mouth. Jeremy doesn't care, not when it's him, but it's different now. It'll be Jeremy _and_ Tyler. Tyler_ and _Jeremy. Everything's different now.

"What's wrong?" Tyler asks, withdrawing his fingers. "What can't you do?"

Bonnie hesitates, pulling her mouth from Jeremy's. She tries to think of some way to say it, without it sounding so vulgar, or so awkward.

"She doesn't want to go down on me," Jeremy says simply.

"Oh," Tyler says.

"Not because I don't want to," Bonnie hurries to say. "I just don't want-" She sighs. "I want Tyler to kiss me. I want both of you to kiss me so-"

Tyler smiles as he angles her chin so he can press his lips to hers, and her heart stutters in her chest. "I'm always gonna want to kiss you," he promises. "You can do whatever you want." Another kiss. "You can do me later. If you want."

The smile he gives her is practically searing, that Tyler Lockwood smile, the perfect blend of cockiness and humor.

"I want," she sighs.

"Me, too."

They both look to Jeremy who raises his hands as he smiles. "Me three."

Bonnie giggles, and Tyler shakes his head. "Shut up, Gilbert."

His fingers bury themselves into her hair, and it takes her a moment to realize he's moving it out of her way, pushing it over her shoulder. They ease backward together, the tips of her fingers trailing along the tops of Jeremy's legs. When she bends forward to take him in her mouth, Tyler replaces his fingers.

"Wait," she says, sitting up again.

Tyler stops touching her, and she feels Jeremy tense up beneath her.

They both probably think she's about to call this whole thing off. That's her thing. She's the one that stops them, and brings them back to themselves. They haven't gone too far yet, not past the point of no return. If she stopped now, they could try to go back to normal tomorrow.

"Relax," Bonnie says with a smile. "We're not stopping." She reaches for Tyler's hand, feels his fingers wet and slick against her own. "I don't want your fingers."

Tyler nods, biting down on his bottom lip as he smiles. "Okay."

_"Do you want us both?"_ he had asked her once, in this same bed on a lazy morning when it was just the three of them. She hadn't answered him then. But as she lets go of Tyler's sticky hand and bends back over Jeremy, she thinks her answer is pretty obvious. Even moreso when Tyler pushes into her.

She's so wet, it's easy. So very, very easy. She doesn't think she's ever been as easy as right now, with both of them.

Tyler remembers from the first time, not so gentle, she can take it. She's on sensory overload. Everything they do seems to illicit a moan from her, even the things that she doesn't think would normally. Like Tyler's mouth pressed to her spine, leaving wet kisses across her skin, and Jeremy's fingers coasting through her hair.

She's always liked it, knowing Jeremy likes it. She revels in the pressure of his touch on her shoulder, the hissing breaths he takes. When he becomes quiet, she can hear Tyler behind her, the sound of him sliding into her, his heavy breathing. Then she can hear Jeremy breathing. And her own heart seems to be a drum, a delightful percussion accompaniment. And all the sounds are just so perfect.

Jeremy groans and his hips rise off the bed to push him further into her mouth, Tyler goes faster. One hand wrapped around Jeremy, she reaches to hold one of Tyler's, resting on her hip.

That's the only problem: She can't touch them both as much as she wants to.

"_Bonnie._"

And like that dream, she's unsure at first of who said it. Then she realizes it came from them both.

Jeremy comes in her mouth, and she swallows it down. When she looks at his face, he's got that goofy grin, and she leans to kiss him, keeping hold of Tyler's fingers. He slows down enough so she can kiss Jeremy. He never minds it, never has, tasting himself on her, and he kisses her like always does. So intent, so focused. She loves him so much.

When Jeremy releases her, Tyler returns to his original pace. God, he's _so _good. They're both so good.

They should have done this sooner, the night of her birthday. It should have happened then, before everything else got so complicated. But better late than never. Still, they could have done this half a dozen times by now, if they'd just done it that night.

Bonnie's breath hitches in her throat as Tyler pulls out of her only to push back in, harder than before.

"Like that?" Jeremy asks, his voice low. She doesn't realize she's been staring at his mouth until his lips move, his tongue peeking from between his teeth.

Bonnie nods, somehow incapable of forming words. She has to let go of Tyler, and her hand falls onto the other side of Jeremy's body where it twists into her sheets, crumpling them up in her fist.

Jeremy touches her face and leans in to kiss her again. Tyler doesn't slow down this time. She can hear Tyler cursing behind her, and she knows his close. He did the same thing the other night, drops a few F-bombs before he orgasms. They seem to be more numerous tonight than they were before. She tries to count them, but loses the number somewhere as Jeremy's kiss deepens. She doesn't know what's better, what's getting her. If it's Tyler, his strokes precise and exquisite, or Jeremy with his magic mouth.

It doesn't matter.

Tyler comes with a groan, his hold on her hip tightening just slightly.

Jeremy keeps kissing her.

The hybrid, the witch, and the hunter.

So, so perfect.

And she's coming, and that's also perfect.

And Jeremy's letting her go so Tyler's arms can slide around her middle, pulling her backwards so she can turn her head and kiss him, too. She sighs as he pulls out of her, and wraps an arm around his neck.

So, so perfect.

Both of them.

* * *

Bonnie's fingers lazily trace Jeremy's Mark. She's raised up on her arm, looking at him and smiling. Her hair is pleasantly ruffled, and her lips swollen from kisses.

They're taking a break, to catch their breath. Tyler's fine, patiently waiting. He wasn't as exhausted as they were. After the hunt earlier and this, Jeremy and Bonnie needed a breather. Despite his energy, Tyler is still dozing, more out of boredom than fatigue.

Jeremy, in contrast, can't make himself go to sleep despite the pleasant weariness of his body. He and Bonnie said they'd allow themselves a quick nap before going onto round two because "there _will_ be a round two," Bonnie had said, so certainly, making Jeremy and Tyler both laugh. She said she wanted Jeremy in her next time, and he wasn't going to argue against that. They _said_ they'd sleep, for an hour or so, but both of them had stayed awake. It's been quiet with Bonnie's fingers running along his arm.

Her sheets and her comforter are on the floor, kicked off in the haze of sex and forgotten. They don't bother covering themselves. There's no point to it. This is pretty much as close as they'll all be to each other anyway, and there's no need for modesty after what just happened.

Jeremy rolls toward her and slips an arm around her waist. He kisses her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. "So," he says, "how'd you like it?"

"Wasn't it obvious?" she says.

"Yes."

Bonnie had collapsed on top of him when she and Tyler finished, and she rested her head against him, muttering to them about how they should have done this sooner or something like that. She mentioned her birthday, and then started giggling. Jeremy thought she may have lost her mind for a second, with all her sighing about things being perfect and whatnot.

Her and Tyler are different than what he expected. He doesn't know _what_ he expected really, but somehow that wasn't it. He's used to Bonnie and Tyler kissing by now, and he knew watching them have sex would be...odd, to say the least. Being a participant was weird. But not a bad weird. Just...an unfamiliar weird. He's never entertained the thought of a threesome before. Well, not one with him and Bonnie and Tyler. Not that it didn't cross his mind after her birthday. It was just one of those things, one of those things where you wonder what it may be like, how it would all work out, how everything - everyone - would fit. As far as first times go, they did pretty well, Jeremy thinks.

Bonnie laughs, dipping her head into the crook of her arm. When she looks back up at him, she bites down on her lip before leaning in to kiss him. "Did _you_ like it?"

"I didn't mind it," he says.

"No?" Bonnie says. She looks a little relieved. "You don't think we crossed a line or anything?"

Jeremy shakes his head. If there was a line they crossed, they crossed it together.

The hybrid, the witch, and the hunter.

It's fine.

"You okay?" Jeremy asks, pushing her hair away from her shoulder to drop a kiss there.

"I'm better than okay," she says, stretching her arms over her head as she falls onto her back. She lets him kiss her, lower and lower until his head is between her legs. He's barely touching her, but he can tell she's already very wet.

"Round two," she says, to no one in particular.

Jeremy smiles and casts a sidelong glance to Tyler, still sleeping on Bonnie's right side. "Round two," he agrees, reaching out to shake him.

* * *

Tyler comes to. Bonnie's slender fingers are extended toward him, her eyes - perfectly, painfully green - on him. She smiles when she sees he's awake, but before he can take her hand her fingers grasp the expanse of sheet between them as she let out a quiet sigh. Jeremy's head is buried between her thighs, only the top of his head visible with one her hands - the one not thisclose to ripping a hole in her sheets - as he does things to her that Tyler can't see.

He knows she's enjoying them by those numerous sighs.

"Tyler," she says, releasing the sheet to reach for him again. "Come here. Kiss me."

He rolls toward her and obeys. He loves her mouth, the way her back arches to push her lips closer to his. He slides his hand down her stomach, which hitches slightly as Jeremy hits a sensitive spot inside her. The moan that escapes her mouth travels into Tyler's and seems to echo, bouncing from her tongue to his.

Bonnie takes her hands from Jeremy to touch Tyler instead, holding the sides of his face as they kiss. She pulls back and smiles slowly. "You were really good."

"So you said," he reminds her, kissing the corner of her mouth.

"I did?"

Tyler smiles. How one person can be so cute and so sexy at once, he doesn't know. "A few times."

"_Oh_."

She was saying "Oh" in reference to him, he's sure, but Jeremy's doing something wonderful to her, and it comes out as a moan instead. Her hands fall away from Tyler's face to his shoulders, and everywhere her fingers touch leaves him tingling.

"You said," she begins, before breaking off to let out another moan, "that I could..." She never likes to finish her sentences at times like these, but she reaches to drag a finger along his hardened shaft. In response, Tyler swallow down a groan.

"You want to?"

Bonnie nods.

Who is he to refuse?

He likes how she enjoys it. He has to grip her headboard to remain upright where he kneels in front of her, but he reminds himself over and over not to squeeze too hard or else he'll break it. That might kill the mood. Or maybe it won't. Maybe they're all to into it to be interrupted by a cracked headboard.

Bonnie takes him deeper, and Tyler decides at least he's too into it to care about a cracked headboard. It doesn't break, however, not even as his hold tightens though it does creak in warning.

She pauses for a moment, removing her mouth to look down at Jeremy. She calls to him and tugs on his hair a little, urging him to come back up. "Come on," she says. "I don't want to come like that." Jeremy lifts his head and wipes the glistening wetness from his mouth.

He looks to Tyler who says, "You're good at that."

Jeremy licks his lips and smiles. "Don't sound so surprised, Lockwood."

"Jeremy," Bonnie says, with just a hint of impatience. "Come on."

"You're bossy," Jeremy says as he moves up her body to line up against her.

Bonnie laughs. "You like it," she says as Jeremy sinks into her, her eyes fluttering shut. "You both like it."

Tyler and Jeremy exchange looks.

Well, that's true.

Jeremy's thrusting into her, slow and languid, one of his hands pressed to her hip. One of her hands is working between her legs while she winds her legs around Jeremy's waist.

They look so..._good_. They've found a rhythm, and it's easy and smooth. They fit together so perfectly, and Jeremy knows exactly where to put his hands, where to touch her, exactly how she wants it. Every breath she takes is stuttering and incomplete and _wanting_, matching up with the perfectly timed thrusts of his hips.

"Tyler," Bonnie says, her fingertips brushing against his knee. "Come back."

"I'm coming," he says, reclaiming his position in her mouth. He reaches between her legs to circle over the tiny nub there. Her hand, doing the job at first, falls away.

When Tyler glances toward Jeremy again, he's reaching for Bonnie's hand, and sucking the digits into his mouth.

They're good. Really good.

All three of them.

* * *

Tyler wakes up thirsty. Bonnie's lying against him, and Jeremy is resting against her back with his arms around her waist. They're both asleep now, and Tyler was, too. He wonders what they must look out from the outside, from above even. Lying together in Bonnie's bed, unclothed and sticky with various fluids.

It's not a bad image.

He hates to go, but the thirst is going to become unmanageable the longer he puts it off. Regretfully he untangles himself from Bonnie's warm limbs, and he pulls on a pair of pants to go downstairs.

He grabs the blood from the fridge, tearing open the bag and raising it to his mouth. He sucks the makeshift straw, swallowing it down as he wanders the living room. Upstairs he can hear Jeremy and Bonnie, breathing in tandem, probably still wrapped around one another with that Tyler shaped space, unoccupied, at Bonnie's side.

He grabs his phone from the table where he left it earlier. A text from Matt suggesting he, Jeremy, and Matt hang out tomorrow - more like today - and a couple of calls from Rebekah. He considers calling her back, but the last thing he wants to do is invite Rebekah into this nearly perfect night so she can ruin it somehow. He finishes off the blood bag, and drops his phone back onto the table before stepping out onto the back porch.

He hasn't been hot in a long time, not really, but he feels the coolness of the air all the same. He's just imagining it, because it's never been there before. The whole street is still. The neighbors' houses are dark. The people on this street have no idea what just happened here, what Tyler and Bonnie and Jeremy did. Together. What they did together. The hybrid, the witch, and the hunter.

Of all the things they've done together, killing vampires, having a threesome might be the most shocking to at least a few people in this town. He laughs at what the Council would think if they ever found out. Killing vampires? No big deal. Group sex? Call an exorcist.

There's a snapping of a twig in the darkness. Tyler squints his eyes toward the yard, seeing nothing. Still, he inches back toward the door. He sees the dark outline of someone standing alongside the porch. He's only seconds too slow in getting back into the house as a hand grips his arm to wrench him backwards.

There's a yell on the tip of his tongue, to wake Bonnie, wake Jeremy, but his throat is crushed in Kol's iron fist, silencing him. He hasn't had to breathe, not in a long time, but the inability to pretend shocks him.

Kol seems to find the whole thing amusing as Tyler gasps in front of him, failing at making a sound other than a low croaking. He's healing. He'll heal. It's the only thing that calms him, but then Kol snaps his neck.

* * *

Tyler comes to in a booth with plastic seats. When he sits up, he bangs his head against the table edge and curses loudly. Straightening up, he sees Kol sitting on the other side. They're in the Grill, dark and closed for the night.

"Finally," Kol sighs. "Nice nap?"

"What do you want?" Tyler asks. He's still alive so Kol must have another purpose for him.

"Must we jump right into things? No niceties? Hello. How are you?"

"Fuck you."

Kol smiles. "I'll take it." He leans across the table. "I want to talk to you about your friends. Well, is that really the correct term? Friends? They appear to be _much_ more than that."

Tyler leans back in the booth, scans the Grill. The lights are all off. He's never seen it this empty before, except for once back when he and Matt were still friends, and Matt dragged him there after closing to do something or other. He always took it very seriously. Matt's not here now. No one is.

"You fit together beautifully," Kol says.

Tyler's gaze snaps to the Original's. "You were watching?"

"Don't worry, darling," Kol says gently. "I only caught the second go of it. Not that it wasn't enjoyable. Your witch is-"

"What do you want, Kol?" Tyler demands.

He frowns at him, but shrugs his shoulders. "Fine. Your witch is still alive. That's a problem. I'm willing to compromise since I'm sure her death would be very devastating to you."

"Compromise?"

"Someone has to die," Kol explains. "I imagine you don't want it to be her."

"You're gonna kill me."

Will that make Jeremy and Bonnie step down? He hopes not. If he dies, he wants them to keep going and kill Klaus, and kill Kol, too.

The vampire laughs. "No," he says, shaking his head. "I'm going to kill Jeremy."

Tyler narrows his eyes. "Don't-"

"I've wondered," Kol says, cutting him off. "Won't it be better without him here? You'll have a clear path to that witch you both adore so much."

_Bonnie._

"I don't need a clear path," Tyler hisses.

"It's just us here, Tyler," Kol says. "You can tell me. Do you hate him? Back in Denver he told me all about her, you know. He was so _boring_ about his infatuation with her. He lamented his little _slip up_ with the other one - Anna, was it? - more than once." With a quirk of his eyebrow the Original leans forward. "You wouldn't slip up that way, would you? You wouldn't hurt her that way."

Tyler looks at him, confused. "No," he says. "I wouldn't."

"But Jeremy would," Kol says. "He has before."

"Jeremy loves her."

"But does he love her as much as you do?" Kol says, cocking his head to the side. He smiles. "You _do _love her?"

He's played this game before, with another Original, and then he was on vervain. He's been sloppy since, hasn't taken it like he should have. He points his eyes to the ceiling and takes in a breath.

"Yes."

"Does she love you?"

Tyler swallows. "I don't know."

"You haven't asked?"

Tyler looks toward the door, imagines getting up, making it there. He imagines a world where he'd be able to outrun Kol and return to Bonnie's house where her and Jeremy may be sleeping still in her bed, unaware that he's gone. He could try to go, but Kol would either rip his head off or tear out his heart.

"You can't deny the undeniable benefits to Jeremy Gilbert leaving this earth for good," Kol says. "She'll mourn, of course, but with you to comfort her, it won't be so bad, will it?"

"You're wrong."

Bonnie will never be the same if Jeremy dies.

Tyler will never be the same if Jeremy dies.

Kol shrugs. "We'll see. It confuses me really. My sister said you broke it off with the other one, the one Niklaus fancies because you were her _second choice_. I believe that was the term. I personally don't see the difference this time around."

"Shut up," Tyler snaps.

Kol looks curiously at him, intrigued by the venom in his tone.

"Jeremy has a ring," Tyler says, remembering suddenly. He can't die.

"He also has a curse, but that's not deterring us, is it?"

_Us_?

"I sense that you're a creative man," Kol continues. "I'm sure you can find a way to get that ring off his finger and make his demise _permanent."_

Tyler clenches his fists. He will be compelled. _It's okay_, he thinks. _Bonnie and Jeremy will stop me. _Jeremy's strong, a Hunter. He'll realize something's wrong, and he'll stop Tyler. Bonnie will be able to break the compulsion, and all of it will be fine. They'll be fine.

Kol reaches for Tyler's face, squeezing his chin hard between his fingers to turn Tyler's eyes to him. "**_Get the ring off_**," he says. "**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert. He's in your way, he's the one thing that is keeping her from loving you in return. Kill him."_**

A fog descends upon him. It's fast, swallowing up his mind. He tries to keep hold of Bonnie and Jeremy in his head, all three of them, what they did tonight. Bonnie taking both of their hands to pull them upstairs with her, her shy smile as she arranged Jeremy on her bed, her telling them about that dream she had. Tyler tries to cling to it.

And then all he hears in his head, on a running loop, is, **_Get the ring off. Kill Jeremy Gilbert. Get the ring off. Kill Jeremy Gilbert. Get the ring off. Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

Bonnie's mouth on Jeremy's, her arms around his neck to pull him down closer, to keep him in place. Bonnie's hips arching into Jeremy's. His name from her lips.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

Bonnie sleeping in Jeremy's arms, Bonnie telling Jeremy she loves him, Bonnie dancing with Jeremy at the fundraiser. Bonnie and Jeremy. Bonnie and Jeremy. Bonnie and Jeremy.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert_****.**

* * *

**So I changed the rating to M, just to be safe because it's ****_slightly_**** more graphic than usual this time around. This one was kind of experimental for me because I wanted to see if I could actually write the bulk of this chapter as sex, and I did! Also, many thanks to DixonGirl for making the awesome cover art! Thanks to the rest of you for reading and reviewing. **


	21. Killer Love

**Hello, all! Have an update! Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Killer Love

"**_We never had this conversation_**," Kol says as he walks Tyler toward the exit of the Grill, an arm thrown casually around his shoulders. _"__**You went for a walk around town. It was nice." **_When Kol breaks eye contact, Tyler blinks and is staring at nothing but the side of the Grill. He doesn't know why the doors are wide open.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

Tyler inhales before he speeds back to Bonnie's. The back door is still open, and the porch creaks beneath his footsteps as he steps inside. He can hear Jeremy and Bonnie both, still asleep. He listens past Bonnie's steady breathing to Jeremy's instead.

He's a deep sleeper.

Tyler can picture Jeremy's ring in his head, giant and garish. How to get it off? He could just kill him and take the ring off after. Then he could kill him again. That's probably the best thing to do, considering how long it may take for Jeremy to revive in the first place. Easier that way.

But Bonnie's here, and it's a Sunday. She's not likely to leave for anything, and he can't do it with her here. Even if Tyler can get Jeremy alone, he'll surely put up a fight, and it won't take Bonnie any time to intervene. Then he'll never get another chance.

Bonnie can't be here.

Tyler finds a bloodbag from the fridge to sip from while he thinks. Sitting on the couch, he considers what it would take to get Bonnie to go. A problem with Kol, with Klaus, with Rebekah.

Rebekah.

Who called multiple times while they were...otherwise occupied.

He exchanges the blood bag for his phone and dials Rebekah.

"Finally," she says indignantly. "I've been calling for hours and none of you has seen fit to pick up the damned phone!"

Tyler rolls his eyes. "What's the problem?"

"It's Kol," she says. "He's lost his mind. I-"

"I'll tell Bonnie you need her," Tyler says, cutting her off. "I'll let her know it's urgent."

"Yes, you do that," Rebekah says, still sounding annoyed. "What were you doing anyway? Oh, don't tell me. I'm sure I can imagine. You were-"

Tyler hangs up before she can say anything else. He's not in the mood for her crap tonight.

But what she said was interesting.

Kol off the rails, so off of them that Rebekah needed their help, after she was certain she was better suited to handling the challenge of her brother. Tyler smiles to himself. Originals. There's a niggling at the back of his mind about Kol, but he can't recall what. It doesn't matter anyway. What matters is Bonnie and Jeremy upstairs and him down here, Jeremy still wearing a ring and still alive. He just needs some patience. Bonnie will go to Rebekah, will help Rebekah with whatever Kol's doing, and Tyler will deal with Jeremy.

Footsteps sound above him, soft and padding along the hardwood. They're too light to belong to Jeremy. It's Bonnie who comes down the stairs wearing nothing but a t-shirt. He recognizes it as Jeremy's, and he bites back the snarl that wants to rip its way from his throat.

"Hey," Bonnie says, coming toward him wearing a flirtatious smile. She's so beautiful as she tugs at the bottom of it, trying to get it to cover her up some more. It's a big shirt, but it doesn't hide much. If it wasn't Jeremy's shirt, he would love it.

"Hi," he says. It comes out very quietly.

She kisses him as she crawls into his lap. Gently, slowly, perfectly. It's almost enough to make him forget about Jeremy upstairs, but when Tyler inhales he can smell him on her.

That fucking shirt.

Bonnie laughs when his hands slide underneath it, and she doesn't protest when he pulls it over her head to throw it _far _away from them. She tugs at his own shirt, at his pants until he's just as naked as she is. He's already hard when she pulls him down with her so he can lay on top of her.

On the couch.

Jeremy's couch.

This whole place smells of him.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

It's fine. Soon he won't be able to smell Jeremy anywhere. This couch will smell of Tyler. Tyler and Bonnie. Just the two of them.

They don't need a third.

He kisses her hard, feels between her legs with feather light caresses. His fingers come away wet.

Bonnie lies back beneath him with her curls fanning out around like in a dark, curly hallow. Tyler thinks about telling her. The words are on the tip of his tongue, threatening to topple over, but he can't speak. Something grips his chest and tugs the words back into his throat where he swallows them down. It doesn't matter if he loves her, she will never love him back. She can't. Not while she loves Jeremy, not while Jeremy is here and alive. He can't say it until he knows she'll say it back.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

"You okay?" she asks, turning her head to the side.

Tyler tries to smile normally, but he doesn't think it's very convincing. It doesn't seem to calm her. He knows the kiss he places on her lips does because of the fingers that trail through his hair, and the breathy sigh that escapes her mouth as he enters her.

"_Tyler_." It's one-third moan, one-third groan, and one-third sigh. And the sound of it makes him _so_ happy. It's his name she should be saying like that not Jeremy's. Jeremy who chose a ghost over her, who has had Bonnie give him everything, and gave her nothing in return.

Tyler almost says it again. _I love you._ Instead he says, "I'd do anything for you. I'd do anything. Anything." He says it into her neck, over and over and over again. The words stop coming from his mouth, but they repeat themselves in his head. _Anything. Anything. Anything. More than he ever would._

He would give her anything, everything.

It goes faster than he wants it to, but Bonnie's not lasting long either. She comes as he does, in one of those rare mutual orgasms that he's so rarely experienced. She says his name again. closing her eyes and smiling in satisfaction. While her eyes are still closed, he plants a kiss on her lips. Her smile widens.

Jeremy's scent has faded. Tyler smiles to himself as he climbs off of her. As he leans back against the pillows she stays where she is, only moving so she can put her legs in his lap. "I missed you upstairs," she says.

"Yeah?"

Bonnie nods as she sits up. As she leans into him, she places a kiss on his shoulder. He wants to go again, wants to touch her and hold her and listen to her breathe his name some more, but Jeremy is upstairs. When Jeremy's gone they'll be able to do this all the time.

"Rebekah called," he says. "A few times."

Bonnie shoots him a look of dread, letting out a groan. "What did she want?"

"Kol's done something," Tyler explains. "She said she needed your help."

She groans again, louder this time. "I don't wanna go," she says into his neck.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't want her to go either. He kisses her forehead and angles her lips to his again. When she hums against his mouth, he grins. "You can hurry back," he says.

"Depending on what brand of hell Kol's unleashing now," Bonnie sighs. "I guess I should go shower." She looks wistfully toward the staircase, but then she turns her eyes back on him, reaching for his hand. "I _really _wish you could come up with me."

"That might be counterproductive," he says. But he can picture all the things he'd love to do to her in that shower and all the things she could do to him. Now he really wants to go up with her, too.

"Might be," she agrees. Before she kisses him again, she murmurs, "Kol better have done something terrible."

"Careful what you wish for," Tyler says.

He reluctantly lets Bonnie's fingers slip from his. As she reaches the stairs, he says, "Walk slower." He wants to watch her go up those stairs naked, and he wants it to last awhile.

Bonnie looks over her shoulder to smile at him. She obliges, taking her time as she saunters up the stairs. When she's disappeared, Tyler listens until he hears the spray of the shower. Behind it, in Bonnie's room, he hears Jeremy breathing.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

He won't be breathing for long.

* * *

Rebekah opens the front door mere seconds after Bonnie rang the doorbell. "Oh thank you for deciding to grace me with your presence, Bonnie," Rebekah says sarcastically as she steps aside. "You certainly took your sweet time getting here." The door slams shut.

"At least I'm here," Bonnie says. She lets Rebekah lead her into the sitting room where she remains standing while Rebekah pours herself a glass of something amber-hued and alcoholic. "What's the problem?"

Rebekah raises the glass to her lips and drinks it down. It's probably something strong, but she doesn't flinch. "He threatened to kill me."

"Klaus?" Bonnie asks, arching an eyebrow.

Rebekah laughs a little to herself and tosses her glass into the unlit fireplace where it smashes to pieces. "Someone's in a bad mood," Bonnie comments.

"That is an enormous understatement," Rebekah says. She begins to pace the room, her heels clacking on the floor. Even with the sound of her footsteps, Bonnie finds it hard to concentrate on her.

Her mind keeps going back to her house, back to her bedroom, back to everything that happened last night (and early this morning) in her bedroom, the thing that happened on the couch before she took her shower.

It's just been such a good past few hours. So good that neither Rebekah nor Kol can ruin it.

"It wasn't Klaus," Rebekah says at last. "It was _Kol_."

Bonnie raises her eyebrows. "One of your brothers threatening you with violence," she says, "that's nothing new."

Rebekah lets out another laugh, this one darker than the first. "I must admit I'm getting quite more used to it than I'd like to be. Though, to be fair, Nik has never threatened me with the one thing on this earth that could truly kill me." She stares into the distance with glassy eyes, pondering.

"Give it a few more centuries," Bonnie says.

"Isn't the point of our alliance," Rebekah says, taking a step toward her, "that Klaus won't have centuries left to live?"

The point of their alliance is that Klaus won't have _days_ to live once they get that cure.

"Yes," Bonnie says. "How did Kol get the stake? Wasn't Klaus keeping it on lockdown?" She should suggest to Rebekah not to allow Klaus to claim ownership of anything anymore as it all seems to be taken from him quite easily by his brothers.

Rebekah rolls her eyes and perches on the edge of a fancy, antique chair. "Yes, but Kol is apparently quite good at finding the things my brothers hide. Better than any of us knew. Before Nik returned from your little trip , Kol discovered it. I attempted a civil conversation with him last night, not knowing he'd taken it, and he became very angry." She shakes her head slightly, her eyes downcast. "He's quite stuck on this Silas business. He put the stake right to my heart, and told me that he would not hesitate to kill me if I stood in his way."

"Looks like he hesitated to me," Bonnie says. "You're still here." She remembers the road, Rebekah's late arrival, and her lack of concern. She repeats Rebekah's words. "So what's the fuss?"

The other girl smirks and crosses her arms over her chest. "Yes, Bonnie, rub it in," she says. "Get it all out of your system because we have work to do."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Where's Klaus?"

He's definitely not there. He would have made himself known by now, throwing a tantrum to rival his sister's.

"Looking for Kol," Rebekah answers, "though I don't know what he intends to do when he finds him."

"Klaus can't be killed with that stake."

"I don't need reminding, Bonnie," Rebekah says, pointing her gaze to the ceiling. "What I mean is I don't know what he's going to do to Kol."

"You think he'll kill him?"

"No," Rebekah says, pursing her lips. "Nik likes us daggered in coffins not in piles of ash. But he has nothing to use against Kol."

"We need to find the daggers then," Bonnie says with a sigh. What else is new?

Rebekah laughs to herself, fixing her stare on the rug.

Bonnie furrows her brow, looking to the vampire for some kind of hint at what she now finds so amusing. "What's so funny?"

Rebekah raises her eyes to Bonnie's, and stands to pour herself another drink. "The daggers are gone. Kol destroyed them all."

"He _what_?"

"Yes, I was surprised, too," she says dispassionately, pouring a second one. "But it's true. They are very, very _gone_."

Bonnie gapes down at the floor. "We're fucked."

Rebekah nods her agreement and extends the second glass to Bonnie, who takes it. She doesn't drink it, but she looks down at it, the wheels turning in her mind. They are well and truly fucked.

Unless.

"Elijah," Bonnie says. It is a terrible trade. One Original for the other. They made that call once before, and even though Rebekah hasn't been _that_ bad, Elijah will be out for blood once he's out and about again. But Kol is proving to be a bigger issue than they anticipated.

"I'm afraid that is also an impossibility," Rebekah says, before downing her drink in one gulp, "Elijah's coffin has disappeared." She tosses that glass into the fireplace, too.

"Kol _took_ it?" Bonnie says in disbelief. "Where?"

Rebekah shrugs her shoulders. "No idea, but I'm certain he's better at making things disappear than Nik is." She pouts at Bonnie's untouched drink and reaches out to snatch it from her. Some of the liquid spills onto her hand, but she doesn't care. She drinks it down and discards of the glass the same as the others. "My dear brother," she says, to no one in particular. "So smart."

If Rebekah knew how _smart_ Kol was maybe she should have taken some precautions.

"He's definitely working with more brain cells than the rest of you," Bonnie admits which earns her a scathing glare from the blond.

"So," Rebekah says coldly, apparently willing to let that particular insult slide, "what do we do now?"

"Why do you assume I have a solution?"

"Because you're the Bennett witch," Rebekah says. "I'm sure you'll come up with something."

* * *

Before heading to the Mikaelson place, Bonnie insisted on going to breakfast together which is how Tyler and Jeremy end up in the diner together even after she's gone to meet Rebekah. And Tyler can't kill him in public, no matter how badly he wants to. Jeremy eats his waffles, going on and on about something ridiculous. Something Tyler doesn't want to hear.

"Can we stop at my house on the way back?" Tyler asks. "I have to find something."

Jeremy nods, mouth full.

**_Kill Jeremy Gilbert._**

* * *

Jeremy waits in Tyler's living room while he goes upstairs. It's very quiet here. In a way it reminds Jeremy of being back at his house, where it felt something like a tomb, a place that didn't belong to him. He wonders if Tyler feels the same way now. Jeremy makes himself comfortable on the sofa in the den in front of the giant flat screen. He doesn't turn it on, but sits with his cell phone, sending a text to Bonnie to make sure she's okay with Rebekah.

_Yes. Kol has the white oak stake. Rebekah's freaking out._

Kol wasn't this annoying back in Denver.

_And he destroyed the daggers_, is Bonnie's next text.

Jeremy sends her another. _What do we do?_

_I'm working on it._

Jeremy pinches the bridge of his nose and sucks in a breath. "Tyler!" he calls.

Tyler's very focused on whatever it is he's looking for upstairs because he doesn't respond. They might be here awhile.

Jeremy glances around for the remote, spots it near the television, and he moves to retrieve it. As he stands, he feels something, small and nagging in his gut. He can't place it, or what it means. It wasn't there before.

He ignores it, reaching for the remote. His fingers close around it as he glances toward the television screen, seeing a flash of movement in the gray reflection. Just slightly distorted, it's Tyler, moving toward him.

That feeling is getting worse. Now it feels like there are small sticks with rounded edges poking at him.

He realizes it's a warning as Tyler lunges for him.

Jeremy moves in time for Tyler's hand to barely grasp him, but he slams into the television, knocking it down so it crashes to the floor.

"Tyler," Jeremy says, putting as much distance between them as he can. "What are you doing?"

A part of him believes it's a joke, that they're playing some kind of game here. But he and Tyler don't play games, not like this. They joke, they laugh, Tyler will give him some practice if Jeremy asks, but Jeremy hasn't asked. And the poking sensation in his gut has only become more insistent. Tyler is a threat. Every part of him knows it. Just as every part of him is confused as to _why_.

"Tyler," Jeremy repeats. "What's going on?"

Tyler won't answer him, but the muscle in his jaw is ticking persistently.

Jeremy runs. The dining room is through the next archway as is a table surrounded by wooden chairs. He grabs the nearest one and breaks one of the legs off, creating a jagged point. It'll work.

He reminds himself Tyler will heal. The only sure way to kill a hybrid is by cutting their heads off or removing the heart. A stake will just put him out for awhile. It's fine, and it's also necessary. Still, Jeremy doesn't want to.

"Tyler," Jeremy calls. "Whatever this is about, we can talk about it." He sounds like such an idiot. "Is this about last night?"

Maybe Tyler wasn't as fine with it as Jeremy thought. Still, this seems like an overreaction.

He hears Tyler before he sees him, somewhere outside the door, to the left. He's stalking. How vampiric of him. Jeremy tightens his grip on the stake as Tyler comes at him. He's fought with Tyler before so he knows what his preferred methods are. He's prepared when Tyler goes for his neck, and he catches his hand twisting it to put his chest to Tyler's back.

He raises the stake.

And hesitates.

Even as the point hovers over Tyler's heart, he hesitates.

And one second of hesitation is too long.

Tyler seizes Jeremy's wrist squeezing hard enough that he feels the bones grind together. The stake falls from his fingers even as he wills it to stay, and Tyler kicks it somewhere. He grips Jeremy's hand next, folds along the fingers. Barely a twitch of Tyler's hand, and Jeremy's fingers are breaking.

He howls in pain. It feels like two of them, but Jeremy ignores the pain to ball up his other fist and send it into Tyler's face. Both of his hands are throbbing as he throws Tyler off of him, his eyes scanning the room, searching for the stake. He lets out a breath of relief as he spots it, and it's as he's going for it that he catches sight of his rapidly swelling fingers.

And the ring that is missing from one of them.

He allows himself a glance back to Tyler who is now standing. One finger is pointed upward, and Jeremy's ring sits on it. The slow smile that spreads across Tyler's face turns the poking in his stomach into stabbing.

_Rings can come off,_ Jeremy remembers.

He pushes himself to his feet, but is right back down when Tyler hits him. The stake is still a few feet away.

Jeremy tries to push himself up again, but Tyler reaches for his ankle and holds him in place. When he crushes it beneath his palm, Jeremy feels tears spring to his eyes. "What _the fuck_ is wrong with you?"

"You're the only thing in the way," Tyler says, still bent down and staring at him.

Jeremy stares at him, watches him blink. There's something there, behind the eyes. A certain dazedness, a cool determination, manufactured and placed there.

_He's compelled_, Jeremy realizes.

It's a relief.

Or it would be if Jeremy had a stake to defend himself with. It's roughly two feet behind him, a little to the right. He can reach it. He just has to time it right.

"In the way of what?" Jeremy asks.

Tyler blinks. "Me and Bonnie."

Jeremy swallows, nodding his head. "What if I tell you that I'll leave? You and Bonnie can be together. I won't be in your way." He tries to get some leverage with his other leg. One good hand, one good leg. Better make them count.

"She'll never stop loving you," Tyler says. "You'll always be in the way. She'll never love me as long as you're here."

He won't reach the stake. Tyler's too close, and it will take little effort for him to break Jeremy's neck.

"What about the curse?"

"Temporary," Tyler says.

_Go fast. No hesitation. Just do it. He'll thank you later._

Jeremy sucks in a breath and throws his leg around Tyler's neck, bending at the knee. He jostles his ankle in the process and ignores the pain to force Tyler to the floor. Then he's on top of him, reaching for Tyler's neck. _A fast break_, he tells himself.

The operative word is fast.

Jeremy's broken fingers are cumbersome, but he doesn't feel the pain anymore. Not as his hands wrap around the column of Tyler's throat, not as he pushes down, holding Tyler there. If he gets up, he _will_ kill him. Tyler's eyes darken, veins appear, fangs elongate.

Jeremy's grip is as good as it's gonna get.

"Sorry, Ty."

His eyes are still open when Jeremy snaps his neck.

* * *

Caroline is coming from the porch when Jeremy pulls up in front of Bonnie's house. And even though they're relationship has barely been anything more than occasional friendliness, some teasing when he first started to like Bonnie, he's relieved to see her. He climbs out of the car, peeking in the backseat to make sure Tyler's still unconscious. He is. The stake Jeremy put in his heart for good measure hasn't been dislodged.

"Hey," Caroline says, raising her hand in an awkward wave. "I thought you guys might be back so I wanted to see if we could-"

"I need your help," Jeremy says, hobbling around to the front of the car.

Caroline blinks. "...Okay," she says, coming a little closer. "What's wrong?" She eyes his limp curiously.

Jeremy opens up the door to the backseat. As soon as she sees him, she gasps and lunges forward. "What happened?" He stops her before she can get close enough to remove the stake. That's _just_ what they need.

"He tried to kill me."

Caroline's face screws up in disbelief. "He did _what_?"

"He's compelled," Jeremy says. "We were at his house, and he came at me." He shows her his swollen fingers and motions down to his ankle.

"He did that?"

Jeremy nods.

Caroline's eyes grow wide. "Who compelled him?"

"Probably Kol," Jeremy says. "We have to get him in the house, and we have to call Bonnie."

"I'll take him," Caroline says. "You call Bonnie. I'll give you my blood when we get in there."

* * *

"Will this work?" Rebekah asks from where she leans on Bonnie's right side, looking down at the face of the map.

"It'll work better if you stop talking."

"You'd think a young lady such as yourself would be in a better mood," Rebekah says, pursing her lips, "with all the _attention_ you're receiving at home."

"Shut up," Bonnie says, out of the corner of her mouth. Sad-And-Angry Rebekah might have been slightly more aggravating and drunker than Regular Rebekah, but at least she didn't poke her nose into Bonnie's business.

Rebekah obliges, but she remains close as Bonnie searches for the coffin.

She can't find it.

"You said that would work," Rebekah reminds her.

"I know what I said."

"Then why didn't it?"

"Does Kol know witches?" Bonnie questions.

"Well, he's not half as popular with them as Elijah is," Rebekah says, "but he's known his fair share, as we all have. You think my brother's found a witch to assist him? On such short notice?"

Kol had no problem getting Clay to help him, however passive that help may have been.

"Any other ideas?" Rebekah questions while Bonnie rests her hands on top of the table, searching her brain for an alternative. She doesn't get long to think because her phone starts ringing in her purse.

"I'll get it," Rebekah says speeding across the room to retrieve it. She holds the phone in her hand, looking down at the screen. "It's your boyfriend," she says. "The Gilbert one."

Bonnie snatches her phone from Rebekah's manicured fingers and answers. "Hey," she says. "I'm still with-"

"Tyler's been compelled," Jeremy says.

"What?"

"He's been compelled," Jeremy repeats.

Rebekah, still standing close, has heard.

"By who?" Bonnie asks.

"Kol," Jeremy says. "He compelled Tyler to kill me. Me and Caroline are with him. He's out for now. I broke his neck. And staked him."

"What?"

"I had to," Jeremy says. "But he's fine otherwise. Can you get back here? We need to break the compulsion."

"Yeah," Bonnie says hurriedly. "I'm on my way." She hangs up and looks to Rebekah who appears slightly intrigued.

"That's an interesting development," she comments. "Do you know how to break an Original's compulsion?"

"No," Bonnie says. "Can _you_ do it?"

Rebekah raises her eyebrows. "No."

"Rebekah-"

"Not because I don't want to," she says, "but because I _can't_. If I were to go to Tyler and tell him _not_ to kill Jeremy, he would listen. But he would still be bound by Kol's compulsion, and it would drive him mad trying to perform contradictory tasks. In the end he'd probably kill Jeremy anyway, and then his mind would break because he didn't do as _I_ said. Only Kol can break Tyler's compulsion. Quite the conundrum, isn't it?"

Bonnie balls her hands into fists. There has to be a spell somewhere. She's done things similar to compulsion, manipulating vampire's minds, but she's never tried to make someone do the opposite of what they'd already been told. What if it was the same deal as Rebekah's compulsion?

"Help Klaus find Kol," Bonnie says. "I'm going home."


	22. All You Need Is Love

All You Need Is Love

Jeremy opens the door before Bonnie reaches it, fumbling with her keys. "Are you okay?" she asks, throwing her arms around his neck. He staggers a little bit, gripping the side of the door to hold himself straight. That's when she notices that he's trying not to put weight on his foot.

"I'm okay," he assures her. "Caroline fed me some of her blood. It's just taking a little while to heal." When she releases him, he closes the door and hobbles toward the sofa where Caroline is sitting alongside Tyler's body. He looks like he could be sleeping, if not for the stake in his chest. Bonnie can tell Caroline is staring at it, and she's holding her hands tightly in her lap as if to keep herself from pulling it free.

She turns her head when Bonnie enters and smiles weakly. "Hi."

"Hi."

"He got my ring off," Jeremy says, holding up his hand. His fingers are swollen and red, and the ring that usually adorns his ring finger is gone. She lets out a sigh of relief when he shows her that it's on his other hand now, at least until his fingers are better.

"When did Kol do it?" Bonnie asks. "When did he have the chance? We were-" She falls off, glancing to Caroline who is back to looking at Tyler and clears her throat. "We were together all last night. And you were with him all today."

"Not all last night," Jeremy says, raising his eyes to hers.

No, there was a moment Tyler wasn't there, but Bonnie assumed he'd been downstairs the whole time. Not out being compelled by Kol. He seemed perfectly normal when she'd come down. Then again, they didn't do a lot of talking, not about Jeremy at least.

"When are we gonna, you know, wake him up?" Caroline asks timidly from the sofa. "It's weird looking at him like this."

"We'll put him in my room," Bonnie says. "I'll do a spell to keep him in. Caroline, can you-"

"Got it." She lifts Tyler easily and carries him up the stairs where she disappears from sight.

Once Caroline's gone Jeremy motions for Bonnie to follow him. The swelling in his fingers is going down, and his limp is less prominent as he leads her into the kitchen where he turns on the faucet. He glances warily toward the stairs before speaking. "He said you were never gonna love him if I was in the way."

"Oh," Bonnie says. That's not what she expected. "You think Kol compelled that, too?"

"Tyler's never said anything about it," Jeremy says, shrugging his shoulders. "And seeing as how he wanted to kill me because of it, yeah."

"He may just...not have told us," Bonnie says.

Jeremy shakes his head. "Kol compelled him to feel that way. He's an asshole." He looks down at his ring, twists it. "Cut it close."

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I can move my fingers again," he says with a smile. He wiggles his fingers for her before reaching over to turn the faucet back off.

"I mean are you okay otherwise?"

Jeremy considers it for a moment. "It was weird," he says. "I didn't realize at first that he was compelled. I thought he was..." He shakes his head. "I don't know. It wasn't like that. It's Kol, not Tyler."

He hugs her, pulling her into his chest where he rubs her back gently. "He's gonna be okay," he says. "We'll take care of him."

Bonnie remembers when Jeremy was dead in her room, burned to death by Stefan. Tyler hugged her then, folded her up in his arms and promised they would take care of Jeremy. And now Tyler's tried to kill him.

Bonnie inhales as she releases him. "We should go up." She leads him up the stairs, walking slowly. She doesn't know what Tyler they'll get. What else did Kol compel him to believe? Was everything that happened after Tyler disappeared from her bedroom an act? Something that Kol manufactured and packaged just for them?

Caroline's waiting. The sheets are still rumpled from last night, and Bonnie hopes Caroline can't somehow tell what happened in there last night. She doesn't seem to catch onto anything, but Bonnie still avoids looking at her for too long.

"You should go outside," Bonnie tells her. "You won't be able to get out once I do the spell."

"Oh," Caroline says. "Yeah." She joins Jeremy just outside the door. Unlike her, he could come in if he wanted, but he keeps his distance. Maybe that's a good thing.

This spell has become second nature to her by now. When it's done Bonnie pulls the stake from Tyler's heart with a sickening squelching sound and sets it on her nightstand where it sits, its tip bloody. Tyler's eyes snap open within seconds, but he doesn't sit up. He looks up at her, sucking in a deep breath.

"Hey," he says. There's a flicker of a smile at his mouth. She feels his fingers brushing against hers before she realizes he's moving, and she can't help but smile as he interlaces them. He hasn't realized they have an audience yet.

"Do you remember what happened?" Bonnie asks, leaning over him.

Tyler doesn't respond. His smile fades.

"You tried to kill Jeremy," she says, though she senses he doesn't need a recap.

Finally Tyler sits up. His eyes slide across Caroline and Jeremy in the door. When he looks at Jeremy his mouth twitches, and he looks like he's trying to restrain himself. His fingers become more insistent on hers. "Let me explain."

"You've been compelled," Bonnie says, before he can begin. "Can you remember that at all?"

"No, I-"

"You don't remember?"

"No, I'm not-"

Kol must have done that, too.

"Tyler," Bonnie says. "I just want to look in your head for a second. Can I?"

"Yeah," Tyler says quietly. He moves closer to her, even closer than they already are, and lets her take her fingers away from his. He looks regretful when she does it, but when she places her fingertips against his temples, he calms, closing his eyes.

Bonnie tries not to look toward Caroline and Jeremy, patiently waiting. Not even when Tyler rests his hands on her knees. Maybe it's because Caroline's there, but she feels like they're doing something wrong. Still, she doesn't push him away. She slips into his mind instead, feels along the edges, probing until she finds a tender space where she can enter further.

Bonnie's face is there, most prominently. Nestled amongst blurry images of Kol and the Grill and the dark street. Then she sees Jeremy. Again and again and again there's Jeremy. Then her and Jeremy together, slow dancing at the fundraiser, kissing on the couch, having sex on her bed. She says Jeremy's name while his head is buried between her thighs. She sees herself, her face lit up by sunlight pouring through her blinds, telling Tyler how Jeremy said he loved her, how she loves him back.

Tyler hums.

Startled, Bonnie goes back to Kol. He's hard to grasp, the images of him seem to be running away from her, in a constant state of flight. It takes her a moment to grasp him. If she can pull the memories forward, move them so Tyler can see them, maybe he'll realize these things he's feeling aren't real. Maybe that'll be enough.

Bonnie doesn't know how long it takes. She slips away from her bedroom, from Caroline's and Jeremy's patient observing, and Tyler's hands to pull and prod at pictures of Kol rolling around in Tyler's head.

**"**Kill Jeremy Gilbert," Kol says, in a voice that is warped and distorted. "He's in your way, he's the one thing that is keeping her from loving you in return. Kill him."

Bonnie hates him, possibly more than she hates Klaus, more than she hates Elijah, more than Rebekah even. She hates him.

"We never had this conversation," Kol says before he disappears.

She tries again and again to pull them, so Tyler can see them, too. But they are stubbornly rooted. She withdraws gently from Tyler's brain. He doesn't take his hands away.

"Well?" he asks when she folds her hands in her lap.

"You _were_ compelled," she says. "I just can't bring it forward. I'll figure it out," she promises. "I'll fix it."

Tyler looks in Jeremy's direction and something dark passes over his face. One of his hands fall to the bed, where it balls into a fist. She sees his eyes slide to the nightstand where the stake is, with a tip sharp enough to pierce the chest of a hybrid, and certainly sharp enough to impale a hunter. She reaches for it, vanishing it beneath her hand so it ends up downstairs and far away from Tyler.

He doesn't say anything about her getting rid of it, but his stare lingers on the empty space as she places a hand on top of his fist. "Tyler." She pries his fingers apart so his palm is open and flat on hers. "Look at me." Reluctantly he turns back to Bonnie, but his mouth is set in a hard line. "I'll fix it," she repeats.

Tyler's hand moves to grasp her fingers. "How?"

"I'm working on it."

"Can Rebekah do something?"

"That won't work," Bonnie says regretfully, "but we'll find a way."

Tyler nods his head slowly, staring down at their hands. "Can we be alone?" His eyes flit to Caroline and Jeremy who look startled at having been referred to. Outside of a tightening of his fingers on Bonnie's, he doesn't react to Jeremy this time.

Bonnie hesitates, but Jeremy's already gone with Caroline following after him. Bonnie closes the door with her mind and looks expectantly to Tyler.

"Can you do that thing you do?" he asks, motioning around the room. "So they can't hear us?"

She obliges.

"I'm compelled," he says.

She realizes then that he just wanted Jeremy to leave, and that makes her indescribably sad. It was all three of them last night - the hybrid, the witch, and the hunter - and despite the fact this fracture between them is of Kol's making, it still hurts.

"Yes."

"To kill Jeremy."

"Yes," she says. "And..." She sighs heavily. "Kol told you that Jeremy was coming between us. Me and you. He made you believe I'd never love you if Jeremy was alive."

Tyler glances away from her like she's revealed something embarrassing about him. Bonnie supposes she has. Kol has made him believe that's how he feels. He takes in a breath. "So that's not true?"

"No," she says. "Of course not."

He doesn't look like he believes her. "Last night," Tyler says, "when you two were together you looked like you belonged together. You guys _fit_. You have history, and you love him. You said so yourself that you love him. I can't compete with that."

"I don't want you to," she says. "It's not a competition."

"Isn't it?" Tyler says. "There's only one of you and two of us."

"It's not like that though," Bonnie says. "Right? Remember what you said? There doesn't have to be jealousy or conflict. _Remember_?"

"I remember," he admits. "I guess I just don't think that's possible anymore."

* * *

Bonnie calls Shane. She tried Lucy first and she wasn't helpful, only confirming what Rebekah said about doubling down on the compulsion surely driving Tyler off the deep end. She advised Bonnie to try to break the compulsion anyway, just to see. Anything was possible, she supposed.

Shane's the last person she wants to talk to right now. Well maybe Klaus is the _last_ person. Still, Shane's not at the top of the list. But he knows things Bonnie doesn't and he likes to research. He loves to research, and maybe he's come across something in all those years of reading and writing and traveling he learned something that could help her. He answers the phone eagerly, sounding happy to hear from her. But she doesn't drag it out. She explains the situation. When Shane reverts back to his scholarly adviser voice she's hit with a bout of nostalgia. It's like old times, back when she could trust him to help her when she needed it without questioning his motives.

"You can try," Shane says. "You can do some mind control of your own, but I've never heard of witches being able to go over the compulsion already put in place. Not even with average vampires and especially not with Originals. It's not likely you'll be able to override it."

"That wasn't what you wanted to hear," Shane says when she doesn't respond right away.

No, what she wanted to hear was there is a perfectly simple solution to this whole mess.

"There's a simple solution," Shane says and Bonnie frowns at her phone.

"What?"

"Kill Kol."

That's far from simple.

"Then his whole line goes with him," Bonnie reminds him.

"I know," Shane says. "But if it's the only way..."

Bonnie glances toward Caroline and Jeremy sitting at the kitchen table silently, waiting to hear what their next course of action will be. "You just want to speed up the timetable on getting to Silas," Bonnie says.

"Bonnie," he sighs. "That's not-"

But she's already hanging up, and dialing Rebekah. Maybe Klaus and Rebekah together will be able to force Kol to reverse the compulsion. Maybe there's something they could say to him.

"We're still looking," Rebekah says as soon as she answers.

"It's a small town," Bonnie says, trying not to sound too irritated. "There are only so many places he could be."

"And we are checking them all," Rebekah insists. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Rebekah hangs up, and Bonnie stares at the phone.

* * *

"It's not working, is it?" Tyler asks after an hour of Bonnie trying and failing at working around Kol's compulsion. Everything she throws at him smacks against the wall of his brain then slides away. She tries to remind him that Jeremy is his friend, that Jeremy's not a rival for Bonnie's attention and affection. Nothing will stick. He can feel her poking around up there. It's not uncomfortable, just a strange sensation, but there are worse things to be doing than sitting on Bonnie's bed with her touching him.

"We just not to work a little longer," she says. "It'll work."

"It's not working," Tyler says, pulling away from her hands. Intellectually, he knows he's been compelled. Bonnie wouldn't lie about it, not to him. And he knows, intellectually, that he doesn't really _want_ to hurt Jeremy. It's at the back of his mind, the reminder. These feelings aren't real, the urge he feels to rip Jeremy's head from his neck, isn't real.

But he still feels it.

All of it, even the parts he knows aren't real. They _feel_ real. As real as him being in love with her, because that part he knows is real. Even if he can't pinpoint the exact moment he started hating Jeremy, he remembers realizing he loved Bonnie. That's real. Kol had nothing to do with that.

Before Bonnie came back up, he could hear her downstairs. She called Lucy and Shane, looking for help. And it wasn't until Jeremy's voice chimed in that he became angry. They weren't alone together, Caroline was there there, too. Still it infuriated him. It didn't help that Bonnie's bedroom also smelled of Jeremy. That is until Tyler lit scented candles that he found. If he was going to be sitting in there for an extended period of time, he wasn't going to wallow in a room that Jeremy's spent more time in than him, a room Jeremy's presence is written all over.

"It'll work," Bonnie insists. "I just need to go about it differently. I can try a different approach."

"Bonnie," Tyler says. "You're wearing yourself out."

"Then we'll take a break," she says simply.

"Okay," Tyler says. "Let's take a break. What are Caroline and Jeremy doing?" They're quiet downstairs, but he knows they haven't left. Maybe they're just not talking to each other.

"I don't know," Bonnie says. "Worrying about you, I guess."

"Will you tell Jeremy I'm sorry?" Tyler asks.

"You're sorry?" she asks hopefully. "That's good!"

"Well, I'm not really," Tyler says. "I just know I'm supposed to be, I guess."

Bonnie's face falls. "Oh."

"But will you tell him? I'd do it myself, but it won't seem as genuine if I'm trying to kill him in the process." He says it lightly, in the hopes that she'll crack a smile, laugh a little, but she doesn't. "Bonnie?"

She looks at him, biting down on her lip. "Yeah?"

"Kol didn't change everything," he says. "You know that, right? My feelings for you are still-"

"I know," she says.

"Do you love me?"

The breath Bonnie takes is short and stuttering.

"Because I love you," Tyler adds.

He feels like they're back in her kitchen on that day they kissed for the first time. That was so long ago, back when Stefan was still alive. Then he had been vulnerable, her knowing all about his feelings, him telling her everything she didn't know, the two of them sitting there together pouring their hearts out. And kissing.

"I love you," Tyler repeats.

"You're compelled," she reminds him.

"I thought you said you knew my feelings for you hadn't changed," Tyler says, somewhat jokingly. "If you don't feel the same way, that's okay. I know Jeremy's your..." He doesn't know what to call them, but Jeremy's important. He'll always be important. "I know you love him. I knew that the day we talked about us. I knew the day I realized that I wanted there to be an us, and I know it now. You and Jeremy are practically meant to be together."

"Tyler-"

"Maybe that's the compulsion," Tyler says. "I don't know. But you love him. You're always gonna love him. You'd do anything for him."

"I'd do anything for you, too," Bonnie says. "To make you happy, to keep your safe. I'd do anything." She reaches for his face and her hands are feather light against his cheeks. "I do love you."

"Are you just saying that?" Tyler asks warily.

"No," Bonnie says. "I'm not." She slides closer to him on the bed and twines her arms around his neck. "I think I have for awhile. I wish we were saying it under different circumstances, but it doesn't make it any less true. It just means we'll have to say it again when this is all over." She places a kiss at the corner of his mouth, slow and lingering. "Maybe I loved you that day we kissed the first time."

"Maybe," Tyler agrees.

"I'm always gonna love Jeremy," she says, "but I'm always gonna love you, too."

Tyler's lips quirk upward and he leans forward to rest his forehead against hers. When he brushes his lips across hers, she smiles. The part of him that knows he's compelled is happy. This proves it. Bonnie can love him while she loves Jeremy, while Jeremy's alive. "I love you," she says against his mouth.

"I love you, too." Then, "Say it again." It's nice to hear her say it. It's always nice when Bonnie wants him.

She laughs. "I love you."

"More than you love Jeremy?" Tyler asks, barely whispering.

He can feel Bonnie deflate.

"I'm sorry," he says quickly. "I don't know why I said that."

But they both know why. He's compelled, after all. He must prove himself to be better than Jeremy, Bonnie must love him _more_ than Jeremy. Intellectually, he knows Kol is an asshole. And intellectually, he knows Kol has managed to make him one as well. But the part of him that is compelled - at least he thinks it's the part of him that is compelled - wants to know Bonnie's answer.

"You don't know how badly I want to be with you," he says. And he doesn't know if it's the compulsion or if it's him talking. This was what the sire bond was like, this confusion. Not knowing if his opinions, his words, his feelings, were completely his own. But he can't stop talking. "That's all I want. Well, that and Klaus dead; my mom at home; and us far, _far_ away from this fucking town."

He wants to take her away from here, where they can go be together at college, in a dorm filled to the brim with other freshmen who get drunk every weekend. He wants to spend the night in a tiny twin bed with her and walk across a sunny campus holding her hand. And he wants it to be just the two of them.

Or does he?

He doesn't know.

"Bonnie," Tyler says, "I want to be the only one for you," Tyler says, "because you're the only one for me. I don't want anyone else. I'll never want _anyone _else." He leans in and buries his head in her neck, breathing slowly, steadily. "With me there are no ghosts. There are no Annas. It's just you."

And compulsion or not, Tyler knows that part at least is true.

* * *

"It didn't work," Bonnie says, joining Caroline and Jeremy in the kitchen. Caroline's sipping from a blood bag, and Jeremy's not doing anything but staring at his ring at the table. "Nothing's working."

Caroline sets the back down. "So what do we do?"

Jeremy makes a clucking sound with his tongue. "We kill Kol."

* * *

"His whole line will die," Tyler points out from his space on the bed. He's sitting on the edge, glaring at them. Jeremy can't tell if he's glaring at him because he hates him now or if it's because Jeremy's suggestion was so offensive.

"Do you want to stay compelled forever?" Jeremy snaps. "This is the only way. And my Mark's taking forever to come in anyway."

"Then we work harder," Tyler counters. "We don't just kill of _thousands_ of vampires in one go just because you're getting impatient."

"By graduation. Remember, Tyler?"

Tyler's face twists into a scowl.

Of course he'd be compelled not to have a problem killing Jeremy, but he's against taking out Kol and his line. "We don't have any other choice," Jeremy says. "The daggers are gone."

"We'll find another way."

Jeremy looks to Bonnie for help. don't do this, Tyler's going to stay compelled until he kills Jeremy or dies himself.

"Tyler," Bonnie says quietly, leaning against the door. "We don't have any other options. There are no more ways to try. It's this or nothing."

Tyler stares at her in disbelief. "Bonnie, no."

"You said so yourself it wasn't working."

"And you said we were going to keep trying!"

Her arms folded around herself, she steps into the room. "I told you I'd do anything for you," she says. Even though she lowers her voice, Jeremy can still make out what she's saying, and Caroline can hear even clearer than he can. She fixes her stare on the floor where she doesn't have to look at them. Even though this is getting progressively awkward for her, she stays. She won't go, even though they're not doing what she came here for, and it's been hours. She stays.

"Then do this for me," Tyler says, "leave Kol alone. His line shouldn't pay for what he did. There are thousands of them, maybe more, and there are probably a lot of them who are like me. And Caroline. And Elena. We never asked for this. Bonnie, please don't. For me."

Jeremy's sure Bonnie will say no. They don't have any other options. He and Jeremy will never be able to speak comfortably without Tyler wanting to kill him. And Tyler definitely won't be able to accept his diploma from Bonnie's bedroom.

But Bonnie says, "Okay. We won't. I'll keep looking."

Tyler's whole body relaxes. "Thank you," he says leaning to kiss Bonnie's forehead. "Thank you."

* * *

"Are you kidding me?" Jeremy says when they're back downstairs. Bonnie sits down at the table with all her grimoires and cracks open another one. He's pretty sure that's the same one she's flipped through three times already. She's flipped through them all three times already.

"He doesn't want to," she says, not looking up at him. "I can keep looking. Maybe there _is_ something we missed."

"There isn't," Jeremy says, sitting beside her as she flips through the pages. "You've already looked." Bonnie continues her search. "Caroline? What do you think?"

Caroline looks surprised that her opinion is being asked for, and Bonnie does, too. Still, she pauses in her perusal of the book to wait for the answer.

"I think you have to kill Kol," Caroline says. "It's the only way."

Bonnie slams that grimoire shut and reaches for another. "Tyler doesn't want to."

"Tyler's not thinking," Jeremy says. "He'll thank us later." _Like last time_, he wants to add, but Caroline's there. She may know all about Jenny Lowman, but she doesn't know about the body in Bonnie's backyard.

"He doesn't want to," Bonnie repeats. "We'll keep looking." She glares down at her grimoires. Jeremy knows she agrees with him. She agreed when they went upstairs to tell Tyler, and she still does. But Tyler asked her not to. _For him_.

Resigned, Caroline sits down next to Bonnie and reaches for one of the grimoires, joining Bonnie in examining it.

Jeremy doesn't.

Tyler asked Bonnie not to do it. _For him._ He never asked Jeremy.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, Tyler's a fucking idiot.

* * *

To say Elena looks surprised to see him would be an understatement. Even so she opens the door, cocking her head to the side. "Did you lose your key?" she questions, her eyes squinted in confusion.

"No," Jeremy answers. "I didn't want to just let myself in. I thought-I didn't want to disturb you." He has no idea what Elena does on Sunday evenings now. She could have been napping or something.

Elena opens the door a little wider. "Do you want to come in?"

"Yeah."

She steps aside so he can enter, and they linger in the hallway together after she closes the door, neither of them moving to go anywhere.

"So," Elena says, "what do you want?"

A part of him is screaming to go back to Bonnie's, telling him that he's wasting his time here. Elena won't help him, but he remembers what she said at Bonnie's the last time they spoke: if he needs help, she'll give it. This might not have been what she meant when she said that.

"Kol compelled Tyler to kill me," Jeremy says.

"What?"

"Yeah," Jeremy sighs. "He tried, but I got it under control. The problem is we can't break the compulsion."

"What about-"

"The daggers are gone," Jeremy says. "Kol destroyed them. So I need your help."

"_My_ help?" Elena raises her eyebrows curiously. "With what?"

"Killing Kol," Jeremy answers. "Tonight. I can't do it by myself."

"What about Bonnie?"

"Tyler doesn't want to do it," Jeremy explains. "She's trying to respect that."

"You're not?"

"Bonnie had to do a spell to trap Tyler in her room so he won't come after me again," Jeremy says. "I want my friend out of that room and out here _not_ trying to kill me."

Elena folds her arms across her chest. She turns and walks into the kitchen. He follows, watching as she makes herself some tea. It reminds him of Bonnie, but he tries not to think of Bonnie right now. She'll probably be pissed. Tyler will definitely be pissed. He left when she and Caroline went back upstairs to work with him again. Soon they'll wonder where he ran off to.

Elena finishes making the tea. She pours him a cup, too.

"I'll help you," she says, extending the cup. "On one condition."

Jeremy takes it from her. "What?"

"You move back in."

He doesn't know what he expected, but that wasn't it. "I don't get it."

"Get what?"

"You told me you hated me," Jeremy says. "That was just a few days ago. No, that was _two _days ago."

Elena squeezes her cup. "I know, but I..." She lets out a heavy sigh. "I miss you. We need to fix this. And we're not fixing it while you're not here. It's too easy to avoid each other when you're at Bonnie's."

"So you're gonna blackmail me into moving back in?" he says. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Elena says. "If mom and dad were here-"

"They're not."

It comes out harsher than he meant it to, and Elena looks taken aback. But she goes on anyway, "If they were they'd want us to try to fix this and we should. Say yes, and I'll help you kill Kol."

It'll mean leaving Bonnie and Tyler. It's not like they're going to split up and never see each other again. They'll still have school and he can go over there whenever he wants. Well, as soon as they get over being mad at him for this. So why does he feel like everything's going to change?

It doesn't matter. Tyler's compelled, Jeremy has a mark to grow, graduation is fast approaching, and Klaus is still alive. It doesn't matter.

"Fine."

* * *

**I know this update is a little later than usual, but I got distracted by the solid Beremy moments in last night's episode. ****Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	23. How to Kill An Original Vampire

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! **

* * *

How to Kill An Original Vampire

Bonnie's frustrated when she leaves her bedroom again, going back downstairs to refer to her grimoires. Tyler watches her go, silently thanking her again for doing this. It would be simpler, in a way, to kill Kol like they suggested, but it wouldn't be right, killing so many just to help him.

Caroline lingers at the door after Bonnie's gone. "Can I ask you a question? I've been trying to talk to you guys, but there hasn't been a good time."

"I'm trapped in this room for the foreseeable future," Tyler says, "so now seems as good a time as any."

He goes as near to her as he can. His head feels clearer when Bonnie's not here, when he's not thinking of her. Thinking of Bonnie means thinking of him and Bonnie. Then he thinks of Bonnie and Jeremy, and how he will never be what Jeremy is to her. And it's getting harder and harder to remind himself that Bonnie loves him.

Many times Tyler's fixed his stare on his bracelet, focused on the shells and told himself that everything he needs to know is right there on his wrist. Bonnie loves him. It doesn't have to be the way he thinks it does. It doesn't have to be him or Jeremy. It could also be him _and_ Jeremy. But staring at the bracelet seems to have only made it worse. He welcomes the distraction that Caroline and her question will provide.

Caroline straightens up. "When you decided to kill them - Stefan and Damon, I mean - you went to Bonnie."

"Yeah," Tyler says slowly.

He expects something along the lines of, "Why didn't you ask me? Why Bonnie?" Instead Caroline says, "How did you know she'd help you?"

It takes him a moment to answer. "I didn't," he says. "I was worried she might not. I thought she'd say no because of you and Elena." He glances down to the floor, where the tips of his toes are only centimeters away from Caroline's.

"But you thought she might say yes, too," Caroline says. "Or you wouldn't have asked at all. Right?"

"Yeah," Tyler admits. "Where are you going with this?"

Caroline smiles weakly. "I'm trying to figure out how you saw this _thing_ in each other that I never saw in either of you."

"What do you-"

"I never thought you guys were capable of this," she goes on. "I never thought you two would ever consider something like this. I feel like - like I have no idea who either of you are. I've known Bonnie for my entire life, and she's been my best friend for that whole time. But I never thought she could kill someone - people we know."

"She had reasons," Tyler says.

"I know," Caroline says. "I know you had reasons. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, why didn't I see that _thing_? That killing thing? Why didn't I know that it was there? Why didn't I see it? I didn't see it in her or you or even Jeremy. "

Tyler shrugs his shoulders. "We hid it."

"But _why_?" Caroline asks. "Why did you have to hide it from me? I understand why you didn't tell me you were going to, but I never even knew you _wanted_ to."

"You never wanted to?" Tyler asks. "Ever? Not even Damon?"

Caroline shakes her head. "I hated him, but I could never...kill him. The first time I killed someone it was terrible. I couldn't do that, not even if they deserved it."

"That's just where we're different, Caroline," Tyler says. "Except. I heard you downstairs. You said we should kill Kol because it's the only way."

"It is," Caroline says. "I wouldn't say so if it wasn't. If there was another way-"

"Bonnie's looking for another way," Tyler insists. "She'll find one. There's gotta be something."

"What if there isn't?"

Tyler shrugs. "Then they can keep looking for the cure without me, and when they find it we'll cure Kol, too. That should break the compulsion, right? And if it doesn't, we kill him. Then it'll definitely be broken."

Caroline looks down at the floor, and he knows she doesn't like that plan either.

"What about all those vampires who will die with Kol?" Tyler asks. "We don't know them or who they are or what they're doing. We don't know if this life was forced on them like it was on us or if they asked for it. We don't know if they kill to feed or if they drink from bloodbags or bunnies or something. We don't know anything about them, but you want to kill them?"

"You're not opposed to killing people, Tyler," Caroline says. "You weren't when it meant killing Stefan and Damon. Don't start now that it could help you."

* * *

"Where are you?" Bonnie asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. She tries not to look at the grimoires sitting on the table, ancient and filled to the brim with magical know-how, knowing how to do everything _but_ break compulsion.

"I'm at Elena's - my - house," Jeremy answers. She can hear movement on the other end.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Jeremy says. "We're talking. She wanted to talk."

"Well, why didn't you just say that before you left? Why'd you sneak out?"

"I didn't _sneak out_," Jeremy says. "You were busy with Tyler, and you know what I think about the whole thing."

That was why she was calling, to make sure he hadn't gone looking for Kol. Jeremy wouldn't hold up against him on his own.

"So you're _not_ looking for Kol right now?"

"No," Jeremy says. "I'm with Elena. Do you want to talk to her?"

"_Jeremy,_" Elena says impatiently on the other end.

"No," Bonnie says. It's not like she wants to talk to Elena either.

"Is Tyler okay?" Jeremy asks.

"Yeah, he's fine," Bonnie says. "No change. I'm still looking for another way to do this."

"Any luck?" He says it with just a hint of sarcasm.

"Not yet," Bonnie says. "But I am looking. I'll figure something out. We always do. What did Elena want to talk about?"

"Me moving back in," Jeremy says.

"You want to go back?" Bonnie says, hoping she's disguising her disappointment well enough. "Since when?"

"We're talking about it," Jeremy says. "I don't _want_ to. You know I don't. It's just...she's trying. I don't know. It's not definite yet. I gotta go, but I'll be home in a few hours. Okay?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "Okay. Bye."

Jeremy hangs up, and Bonnie drops her phone onto the table. Jeremy wants to move out now? While Tyler's compelled? After what happened last night? She rests her elbows on the counter, rubbing her face and willing herself to breathe. How did everything go from being so good last night to being like _this_ now? They've spent most of the day like this, all day. It's dark outside now, and she hasn't eaten in hours. She's hungry and tired and the grimoires are useless and Jeremy wants to leave and Tyler may become a permanent resident of her bedroom.

"Fuck!" she says into her hands.

Behind her she hears a series of loud thumps and when she turns she sees that she's flung the grimoires off the table and onto the floor. With a sigh she drops to the floor to pick them up. Caroline speeds over to help her.

"Is there anyone else we can ask?" she says as they drop the books onto the table.

"No," Bonnie sighs, laying the grimoires out gently, like an apology for being so rough with them. "I don't know anyone else. Shane and Lucy both said the same thing: killing the vampire is the only way."

They don't need to discuss how unhappy Tyler will be.

* * *

"Where's the stake?" Elena asks as Jeremy unpacks his hunter's bag. He sets out stakes, the guns, the ammo, weapons with complicated designs that look more like do-it-yourself projects than anything dangerous, but he knows they could do some real harm if used the right way. There's a contraption there that will spit several sharp slivers of wood into a vampire's heart. That one may be good to use tonight. It'll slow Kol down long enough for Jeremy to stake him.

It's going to be all about slowing Kol down, making him weak. Elena's a new vampire and he's a hunter. They're at a disadvantage, but if they play this right, it won't matter.

"Kol has it."

"_With _him?"

"I think so," Jeremy says.

"You _think_ so?"

Jeremy rolls his eyes because it's like he's a little kid again and Elena disapproves of something he's doing. She's the older sister so she gets to react skeptically, look at him like he's stupid. She does that now.

"He wouldn't put it anywhere he couldn't keep an eye on it," Jeremy says, not looking at her, "not with Rebekah and Klaus following him around. And not with us looking for it."

"How do we know he didn't just hide it with Elijah?" Elena asks.

"We don't," Jeremy concedes.

Elena rolls her eyes. "Did you think this through _at_ _all_?"

"I know Kol better than any of you do," Jeremy says. "He's not going to let that stake out of his sight. It's the only thing left that can kill him, and he knows Rebekah and Klaus are looking for him. It'll all he's got to use against them. Well, just Rebekah I guess."

"Seems dumb to me," Elena says. "They might just use it against him. Like we are."

Jeremy shrugs. "I didn't say Kol was a genius." He's smarter than Klaus and Rebekah, but he's made too many enemies in town to let the one thing that makes him vulnerable - the one thing he has that puts him a step ahead of his brother and sister - out of his sight. Kol's just paranoid enough to keep it close.

"And what are we going to do about Klaus and Rebekah?" Elena questions. "When they find out..."

"They knew this was a possibility," Jeremy says. "I told Rebekah what we'd do if she didn't control Kol."

"And what did she say?"

"That we'd have a problem if I did," Jeremy says.

Elena makes an exasperated sound.

"If you want to back out, I'll understand," he says.

"I'm not backing out."

"After everything they've done to us," Jeremy says, "they deserve it." Jenna, Alaric, even Elena being turned into a vampire. The Originals have worn out their welcome. And they're all still alive. Well, not Finn but none of them seemed to care very much for him. It might be too much to hope that they have the same non-reaction to Kol dying.

Elena inches closer to the table. She touches one of the gloves and hisses in pain, yanking her hand back. "They're soaked in vervain," Jeremy says, tugging them out of her reach.

"Yeah, I got that," she says. She massages the tips of her fingers with her other hand as her gaze sweeps over the table. "Is this what it was like over at Bonnie's?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is this what her kitchen table looked like?" Elena goes on. "While you guys were planning to kill Damon and Stefan?"

Jeremy reaches for the giant bag of vervain he grabbed from the Bonnie's kitchen before he left. "We used her living room table sometimes."

Elena doesn't find that very funny. "What's all that for?" she asks, nodding toward the vervain.

"Can you go fill the tub in our bathroom?" he asks, holding it out to her. "Put the whole bag in there."

* * *

"I don't want to do that," Tyler says when Bonnie and Caroline return. He sits at the edge of Bonnie's bed with his hands folded and his head hanging. He hasn't looked at her since she told him her search yielded no results.

"We don't have a choice," Bonnie says.

"Yes, we do," Tyler says, raising his eyes to hers again. "We don't know who it is we're killing."

"We-"

"And what about Rebekah and Klaus, huh? You think they're just going to let this slide?"

"They don't have to find out right away," Caroline says from the door. "We can hide it at least until we get the cure. Right, Bonnie?"

"Right," Bonnie says. There are ways to make it seem as though Kol has simply left town. He has all that he wanted. Bonnie will say she found another way to break the compulsion, and they can shake Rebekah long enough to go find the cure without her. She won't have a chance to question how Jeremy's mark came in. "Tyler, this is the only way."

"I'll stay here," Tyler says. "It's not a big deal. I'll stay."

"For how long?" Bonnie questions. "A week? A month? The rest of the semester? Tyler, please."

"Bonnie," Tyler says. "We can't. It's not the same as the others. I'm not dying, I'm not hurt. I can deal with this. No one needs to get hurt. You and Jeremy can go find the cure without me. You don't need me to find it."

It seems to hurt him to say it, she and Jeremy should go without him. Her and Jeremy should be without him, her and Jeremy make sense without him. It's the compulsion. It only strengthens Bonnie's resolve.

"No," she says. "We're finishing this together, just like we've planned. You're coming with us."

Tyler shakes his head. "No, I'm not."

Bonnie steps toward him to touch the back of his neck. She means her touch to be comforting, imploring. He must have the same idea because he reaches for her other hand, folding it in his fingers. "We can't do this."

"I can't let you stay like this."

_I love you_, she tells him, and he squeezes her fingers hard.

When she steps away from him, he still holds her hand. "Bonnie," he says quietly.

"Tyler."

He lets go of her hand, and she brushes past Caroline and down the stairs. She has to call Jeremy. They have work to do.

* * *

"I was surprised you remembered my number," Kol says when Jeremy opens the front door. The Original is standing on the porch, winding the cord of his earphones around his iPod. He does so meticulously before slipping the device into his pocket.

"I didn't," Jeremy says. "My phone did."

Kol shrugs his shoulders. "May I come in?"

Jeremy pretends to hesitate. "Come in."

"Thank you," Kol says, stepping over the threshold and smiling around the house. "Nice place. Very quaint."

"Shut up," Jeremy sighs, leading Kol into the kitchen where he sits down at the table, right where he said he would. Kol sits across from him, right where Jeremy knew he would. "We need to talk about Tyler."

Kol cocks his head to the side. "What about him?"

"You compelled him."

"Did I?" Kol says, squinting his eyes. "I've had a very busy day, you see."

"What do I need to do to make you break it?" Jeremy asks.

"Stop looking for the cure."

"Done."

Kol raises his eyebrows. "Really?"

"If you'll break the compulsion," Jeremy says. "Do I have your word?"

"That cure's not seeming so urgent anymore, is it?" Kol looks pleased at that.

"Elena doesn't want it anymore," Jeremy says. "I don't think I should have to die for it then. And Tyler shouldn't have to suffer for it either."

Kol leans back in his chair. "And where is your sister? Have you two made up?"

"Something like that," Jeremy says.

"I heard my name," Elena says. She's sped to stand at the kitchen counter, leaning against it casually.

"Hello, doppelganger," Kol says cheerily, turning in his chair. "How are you this fine evening?"

Jeremy takes the opportunity to pull on his gloves, flexing his fingers inside the fabric. They cling to his fingers, and he imagines the vervain seeping into the threads. It's a small something, but it'll work, at least until they can get Kol where they need him.

"Are you two almost done?" Elena asks.

"Almost," Kol says. "We're still smoothing out the wrinkles."

"You'll still have Rebekah to deal with," Jeremy tells him, drawing Kol's attention back to him, "but we won't be a problem anymore. _If_ you help Tyler."

"Leave my sister to me," Kol says. "I'll handle her if need be."

Jeremy laughs a little to himself. "That's what she's worried about. She said you threatened to kill her."

"Threatened," Kol corrects. "She's still up and about isn't she? Hopefully it won't come to that. If my fool sister wants the cure to be _human_. I'd be doing her a favor." His hand twitches just slightly to the front of his jacket, brushing up against it, and something beneath it.

The stake.

Elena sees it, too. She gives Jeremy a nod.

"How do I know you won't just go looking for the cure after I've helped your friend?" Kol asks.

"You have my word," Jeremy says.

"Your word means very little."

"Your word means even less," Jeremy reminds him. "You help me, I'll help you. We all get what we want."

Elena slips out of sight, rifling below the counters. Kol glances back to see her setting pots and pans on the stove. To Kol's eyes she's preparing to cook something. When he turns his eyes back to Jeremy, he nods. "We have a deal. If you renege, I'll not only compel your dear Tyler, I will kill him. Then I'll find someone else to compel to kill you. Your lovely sister perhaps."

"That won't be necessary." He reminds himself not to look at Elena, even as he sees her shape rising from the floor with the crossbow in hand.

"Are your partners-in-crime on board with this plan?"

"Yes," Jeremy says. "Or they will be. Once you keep up your end."

Kol smirks. "Well, I-"

Elena lets the arrow fly. Its point, sharp and tipped with vervain forces its way through Kol's throat. The Original gasps for air as blood spurts from his mouth. Stretching a hand in Jeremy's direction, his yes flit from side to side with unbridled fury.

Elena's already going for the stairs and Jeremy's up from the table to follow as Kol touches the tip of the arrow. Jeremy knows he's pulling it out, and will be after them in seconds. He reminds himself it's all part of the plan, get Kol where they need him, then kill him.

It sounds so easy.

Upstairs he and Elena cut through his room to reach the bathroom. Elena slams the door shut behind them as Kol appears in the doorway from Elena's room. There is blood on his neck, but the wound has already healed. "I'm going to rip you both apart limb from limb," he growls.

"You're going to try," Jeremy says. He pulls the gun from his jeans and Elena pulls the one he gave her. They shoot together, the bullets embedding themselves in Kol's chest, until they've used them all. Kol falls to the floor with a cry, his face twisted in rage and pain. Tossing his gun aside Jeremy grips Kol's arm with one hand and his neck with the other. Kol's cry gets louder as the gloves touch him. His skin turns red and inflames.

That pain is nothing compared to what Kol must feel as Jeremy pushes his head into the tub. The tendrils of vervain floating on the surface of the water gather along Kol's head even as he thrashes. Elena rushes forward to hold Kol's other side as water splashes from the tub, soaking them both. Elena lets out a whimper of pain as it strikes her, but her hold on Kol only gets tighter. "Get the stake!" she says.

Jeremy reaches into the water, his fingers trailing along the front of Kol's jacket. His fingers have just brushed against the wood before it falls away, and he glances to Elena in time to see Kol's other arm breaking through the water, stake in hand. Elena shifts just enough that he hits her stomach instead of her heart, but it stays rooted there. With a cry she releases him, her hands wrapping around the stake's smooth handle.

Jeremy puts all his weight on Kol He tugs a second stake from the waistband of his jeans and slips it into Kol's back. He's injured his spine severely enough that they'll have some more time. "Elena!" Jeremy calls. "Come on!"

She pulls the stake from her stomach and presses it, a pale white wood, into Jeremy's hand. It feels no different from the other, a bit heavier perhaps, this one more smoothly carved. She takes his place, putting one hand on Kol's head to keep him down and another on the stake in his back, pushing it further.

"Do it," she says.

Or at least he thinks that's what she says. He can't be sure. She might not be saying anything at all. It's a strange feeling that's overcoming him. The whole bathroom seems to fall away and he's back in those alleyways with Bonnie and Tyler yesterday, with vampires dying all around them, and Bonnie and Tyler are leaning against the wall together to watch Jeremy work. It's weird now, that they aren't here to watch this, to be part of this.

"_Do it!"_

He definitely hears her that time.

Jeremy brings the stake down on Kol's back, where the heart will be. It slips through his jacket, his shirt, flesh and bone to find the organ. He's not sure it hits him at first, not until Kol's body becomes hot. Burning, burning hot.

He yanks the stake free and grabs for Elena's hand, pushing her out of the bathroom while Kol ignites behind them. The gloves burn her again, and she yanks her hand away as they stumble into her bedroom. When they look back to Kol he's pulling himself from the tub and a feral scream rips its way from his throat. He collides with the counter, the towel rack, the door frame. His limbs are covered in flames as they flail. He gropes for the tub, maybe to throw himself in, hoping that will extinguish them. They all know it won't change the fact that he's dying.

Kol's scream turns to a low whine as he crumples to the floor. When he becomes silent, the flames begin to slow until they are nothing but red embers sticking to what's left of him.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, this is how you kill an original vampire.

* * *

Bonnie calls Jeremy again. He hasn't been answering the few times she's called already. She tries one last time. If he doesn't answer now she'll go over to Elena's and make sure everything's okay. They shouldn't go radio silent like that, not with Kol running around. Caroline sits across from her at the kitchen table, sipping from a blood bag. She drinks when she's nervous.

"Hello?" Jeremy says.

"Finally," Bonnie says. "I've been calling you."

"Sorry. We were-"

"We have to kill Kol," Bonnie says. "Tyler's still not onboard, but..." She scratches her eyebrow. "There's no other way. And you're right. We do need to grow your Mark."

Jeremy's quiet for a few seconds.

"Jeremy?" she says. "Did you change your mind all the sudden?"

"No," he answers. "It's just..." He sighs heavily and his breath crackles into the phone. "I already killed Kol."

* * *

"Did Bonnie call you back?" Abby asks as Lucy sets down their bottles of beer and slides into the booth.

"No," Lucy answers. And she's been checking her phone every few minutes. There's nothing from Bonnie. She tells herself she'll call once she and Abby part ways for the night. "I'm sure she's fine. She's better at this than you think."

"I'm sure she is," Abby says. "She's my kid, isn't she?"

Bonnie's a Bennett.

Lucy looks at Abby pointedly. "Oh, _now_ she's your kid. She wasn't when you left her. Again."

Abby reaches for her bottle of beer, her hand freezing on its neck. "We've already discussed this."

"I remember," Lucy says, twisting off the cap to her own drink and raising it to her lips. The subject was sore the first time Lucy brought it up. She usually takes pride in not harping on those things. She's laidback, she's Lucy. _That's_ her thing. But Bonnie is alone in Mystic Falls without anyone to guide her, and that's partly Abby's doing. The other part is all Bonnie, who won't accept any help that would involve Lucy sticking around in town.

"I should call her," Abby says, looking at her beer.

"She doesn't want to talk to you," Lucy reminds her.

"I know." Abby opens the beer and raises it to her mouth. She drinks from it for a long time before she sets it back down. "But-"

A glass smashes behind them followed by the thump of a body striking the floor. Lucy doesn't blink. In vampire bars, there's always something getting broken, usually on the back of someone's head. She doesn't turn around until Abby cranes her neck to look over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed questioningly.

There's a vampire on the floor, trembling slightly. A couple of his friends are panicking, calling for more blood from the bartender who won't fork it over without them paying.

_The usual_, Lucy thinks.

There's another thump from the left. When Lucy turns it's to see a young woman with a mane of dark curls. She's also on the floor. Lucy can see her skin graying from here.

_Not the usual_.

"What the hell is going on?" Abby asks.

Lucy hears a third thump. Another vampire down. She's already reaching for her phone when she hears a fourth falling. There are still no messages from Bonnie. Lucy told her. The only way to break the Original's compulsion is to kill him.

"Let's get outta here," Lucy says. "We have to call your kid."


	24. Starting Now

Starting Now

Tyler hears Bonnie coming up the stairs. He's lying back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling when she bursts in. "How do you feel?" she asks. She's climbing on the bed to kneel next to him. The bed dips and shakes with her weight.

"I'm not compelled anymore," he says.

The memory of Kol at the Grill came back to him with very little excitement. One minute he was sitting there, hoping Bonnie may change her mind about this killing Kol thing and the next he was recalling Kol's face in the dark dining room of the Grill, telling him to kill Jeremy.

Bonnie lets out a breath of relief, but he doesn't match it. "Tyler," she says, putting a hand on top of his. "I know-"

"We agreed we weren't going to do it," he says. "And he did it anyway."

_Jeremy_ did it anyway. Tyler heard them on the phone, Jeremy coming clean about all of it, enlisting Elena to help because he knew Tyler and Bonnie wouldn't. Bonnie's promise to come over to help them with the body as soon as she checked on Tyler.

"Tyler," Bonnie says again. "Don't be mad at him. He did it for you. And for us."

Tyler closes his eyes and inhales deeply.

"I'm glad you're okay now," she says. "I'm not sorry he did it."

No, she would have helped him. That was what she was on her way to do before Jeremy let her know he'd already handled it.

"I am," Tyler says. "There are vampires dying right now. _Thousands_ of vampires are dying right now."

He feels Bonnie's fingers against his, tentatively pushing against his fingertips. She slides one of her fingers underneath his thumb, trails another along his knuckles. _I'd do anything for you_, she says. _I love you._

And like before, there's a rush that fills him, a relief. Tyler opens his eyes to look up at the ceiling, and moves his fingers so that he can lace them with hers. "I love you, too." He sits up so he can kiss her and let her know that part hasn't changed. That part will never change.

* * *

When Bonnie goes back downstairs she's carrying a neatly folded tank top and shorts that she passes to a waiting Caroline. "The clothes you let me borrow the other night," Bonnie explains as Caroline looks down at them confusedly. "When Kol..."

"Oh," she says. "Right. Thanks. You could have kept them if you wanted." Caroline holds them awkwardly in her hands. "I didn't tell anyone what happened," she says. "On the road."

"I know," Bonnie says. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Caroline says. "How's Tyler?"

"He's pissed."

"I figured," she says down to the clothes. "I tried to give him a pep talk type thing earlier, but I messed it up, I think. I wanted to talk to you all today but..."

"I know," Bonnie says, "I'm sorry. I want to, but everything's got really crazy all of the sudden." It's the quietest it's been all day.

"Yeah, I get it," Caroline says with a smile where she doesn't show her teeth. "We'll talk some other time, I guess. When things die down a little."

"Tyler's taking a shower," Bonnie says quickly, before Caroline can move toward the door. "He said he'd be fast, but we can have a few minutes if you want to use them." She's relieved when Caroline heads toward the couch instead, and Bonnie sits down next to her.

"I want to get past this," Caroline says. She's talking fast, like she wants to get it all out before she forgets or something. " I'm really trying, and I know it's been hard for you. I realize now that Damon-" she takes a deep breath. "-And Stefan were a big part of why it was so hard." She smoothes her hands over her clothes, pushing out wrinkles and then putting them back, rolling the fabric between her fingers.

"I accepted my admission to Duke," Caroline adds. "And I can't go without you. I mean, I can _go_ without you because obviously you're not going to Duke because you didn't apply there and you didn't want to and -" She's rambling and she takes another breath to slow herself down. "What I mean is, I can't go if we're not okay. You're my best friend, Bonnie. You've always been my best friend, way before all this.

"I think, maybe, we just got lost, you know? Maybe I forgot who you were or...who we were. But I remember. I want us to be friends again. I want us to see each other and not feel awkward like we do. I want you to come visit me at Duke, and I want to come see you wherever you'll be - no matter how far away it is. I want us to go somewhere sunny over spring break, and I want you to talk to me again. About everything. Your magic or your life, your parents, school, boys. No matter _who_ the boys are. Because I miss you, and I really, really love you. So we should do all that stuff, you know. And we should do all the stuff we still have left to do. We have prom and then graduation. We should be together for that. It won't feel right if I'm not with you. So we should. If you want to." She smiles down at her hands. "Sorry. I didn't let you talk at all, did I?"

"No, you didn't," Bonnie says, but she's smiling as she reaches for Caroline, throwing an arm around her neck. "I want to do all that stuff, too. And there's so much I want to tell you."

Bonnie still doesn't think Caroline will want to hear about her and Tyler and Jeremy or Bonnie and Tyler at all, but maybe she will later. Maybe they'll get there.

Caroline squeezes her tight, gentle for a vampire, but still tight enough that Bonnie feels it.

* * *

"Bonnie's on her way," Jeremy says. "She'll help us with Kol's body." They'll have to hide it somewhere, at least long enough to get the cure and kill Klaus before he comes looking for vengeance.

Elena nods silently. She's perched on the stairs, one hand under her chin. She taps her foot along to a beat Jeremy can't hear.

"Thank you," Jeremy says, "for helping me. You didn't have to do that." He swallows. "I'll stay here tonight. I'll get my stuff from Bonnie's tomorrow."

Smiling slightly, Elena nods her head. "Okay." She motions to his arm. "How's your Mark?"

It's slowly growing. He can feel it, a persistent tingling across the surface of his skin. It covers his shoulders, his chest. It's imprinting itself along his back at the moment, and he wonders if it'll reach his other arm, too.

"It's going to be completed soon," Jeremy says. "I hope." He laughs a little to himself. Wouldn't that be something? Kol's entire line dies, and they'll still need one more vampire to finish it up?

Jeremy hopes not.

Someone raps on the door.

"That's probably Bonnie," Jeremy says going for the door.

"That fast?" Elena says, standing up.

"Magic," Jeremy says in explanation. He reaches for the doorknob and stops as a voice, distinctly accented and certainly not Bonnie, yells though the door.

"Guess again, Gilberts!" Rebekah shouts.

Jeremy steps away from the door, putting as much distance between it and him as possible. He and Elena exchange frantic glances as he reaches for the stake, lodged firmly in his back pocket.

"She can't get in," Elena reminds him as his fingers close around it. "We're fine."

Jeremy nods right before the door explodes inward. Tiny splinters of wood scatter on the floor as it swings open, banging against the wall.

"No but I can break this house apart," Rebekah says. She stands on the other side with her hands balled into fists and her hair shining underneath the porch lamp. "Where is Kol?" she demands. She grips the side of the door, pressed up against an invisible barrier. "Is he dead?" Rebekah hisses. "_Answer me._"

"Yes," Jeremy answers.

She sucks in a breath, tears springing to her eyes despite her effort to hide them.

"He compelled Tyler to kill Jeremy," Elena says. "We didn't have a choice."

Rebekah turns her stare onto her. "Be quiet, doppelganger, or I will take out your throat." She turns her gaze on Jeremy. "Where's Bonnie?"

"Bonnie didn't have anything to do with this," Jeremy says. "This was me."

"Where is she?" She repeats in a loud yell. There's a sharp cracking sound accompanied by a low groaning. She's pushing on the doorframe, so hard that it just may break.

"I'm right here, Rebekah."

Bonnie mounts the steps behind her, her hands hanging at her sides. Tyler is with her, arms folded tight across his chest. Jeremy tries to catch his eye, but Tyler is too focused on Rebekah. Or maybe he's avoiding looking in Jeremy's direction. It could go either way, he guesses.

Rebekah turns slowly to face them. "It's nice of you to join us," she says, her voice shaking. She backs away from the door just enough for Bonnie to take her place in front of the threshold.

Tyler comes to stand on the steps, just out of Rebekah's reach. "I see you're out of your cage," she comments. She doesn't allow him time to answer. "My brother is dead," she says, turning her attention back to Bonnie.

"I know," Bonnie says. "But we're also one step closer to the cure. Jeremy's Mark is coming in as we speak."

"Kol's line is dying as we speak," Rebekah corrects.

Jeremy sees Tyler lower his head on the steps. He can guess how their conversation is going to go.

"The cure will be yours soon," Bonnie says. "Do you not want it anymore?"

Rebekah lifts her chin and sniffs loudly. She looks over Bonnie's shoulder toward Jeremy and Elena. If she could get through Bonnie, through that door, she would try it. "I still want it," she says bitterly.

"Then we can help you get it," Bonnie says. "Kol's death doesn't have to be for nothing."

"You're trying to negotiate with me after you _killed_ my brother?"

"After everything you and your family have done to us?" Bonnie says. "Yes."

Rebekah takes a menacing step toward her. Jeremy moves as Tyler does, both of them getting closer to the pair of them. Jeremy has the stake, and he's not afraid to use it.

"Then let's make this more interesting, shall we?" Rebekah says, unconcerned with their nearness. There's barely an inch between her and Bonnie. "You will get the cure, and you will share it with me."

"Okay," Bonnie says.

"And you will awaken Elijah."

"No."

"_Yes_," Rebekah says. "Once I've administered the cure to Niklaus, you will awaken Elijah. I will not live out the remainder of my life alone. You and your friends have already stripped me of two brothers."

"And you're getting rid of one yourself."

"All the more reason I would like Elijah up and about," Rebekah snaps. "Do we have a deal? Or should I give Niklaus a call so we can burn this town to the ground? Starting with this house?"

"I could kill you right here."

"You could," Rebekah concedes, "but you'd be killing a _lot_ of vampires with me. And you've already racked up quite the body count, have you not? Tell me, Bonnie, are you the hero or the villain of this story? It's getting quite hard to tell. Kill me if you'd like, but you may have to hop off that high horse you're sitting on, and I know you like your high horse." Her frosty gaze flits to Elena and Jeremy again. "You all do."

Jeremy looks at the outline of Bonnie's shoulders, sees them rise and fall in a sigh of resignation. "_After _Klaus has taken the cure, I'll open Elijah's coffin." After Klaus is dead.

"How do we know you two won't come after us?" Jeremy asks.

"I'll kill you both if you do, " Bonnie says. "Bloodlines or not."

Rebekah takes a step back, smirking. "Fair enough. Another thing: Where is Kol's body?"

"It's upstairs," Jeremy says.

"Give it to me."

"What are you doing to do with it?" Elena questions.

"I'm going to give my brother a burial," Rebekah says loftily. "Give me his body, and I will not tell of your transgression to Niklaus."

"Fine," Bonnie says.

Elena goes to retrieve him.

"And another thing," Rebekah says.

Bonnie folds her arms. "You have a lot of things."

"You killed my brother," Rebekah says. "I'm entitled to a few."

"What do you want?" Jeremy asks impatiently.

"The white oak stake."

"I don't need a stake to kill you," Bonnie reminds her.

Rebekah is unfazed. "Then you should have no problem handing it over?" She holds out her hand expectantly.

Jeremy pulls the stake from his back pocket as Elena returns with Kol's body. He's wrapped in old ragged sheets over plastic bags, just a dead body hidden from the world. Bonnie steps aside as Elena lifts him, careful not to cross out on the porch, to pass into Rebekah's waiting arms. She swings him gently over one shoulder.

"The stake?" Rebekah says.

Jeremy passes it to Bonnie who holds it just out of Rebekah's reach. "What are you going to tell Klaus?" she asks.

"Kol left town," Rebekah answers. "I won't tell him of Kol's _murder_ until he's human. Deal?"

Satisfied, Bonnie holds the stake out to her, and Rebekah snatches it from Bonnie's grip. "Call your professor, Bonnie," she says. "When you leave to fetch the cure, I go with you."

As she leaves, Caroline's car pulls up in front of the house. The Original doesn't appear to acknowledge her as she speeds away, taking Kol with her. It isn't until she's out of sight that Bonnie, Tyler and Caroline come inside. Caroline goes into the kitchen with Elena who is hovering by the counter, keeping as much distance between herself and Bonnie and Tyler as possible. Or at least that's what Jeremy thinks she's doing. He could be wrong.

"Are you okay?" Bonnie asks him as Tyler closes the front door. "You didn't get hurt?"

"No," Jeremy says. "It went pretty well actually." He sees Tyler shift at Bonnie's side, still refusing to look in Jeremy's direction.

"Let me see your Mark," Bonnie says, in an obvious attempt to avoid the tension.

He plays along, pulling his shirt off over his head. She circles him, her hands sliding along his skin. "It's still coming in," she says. "It's...pretty."

"Thanks?"

Tyler steps away from them both and goes to sit at in the living room. When he goes Bonnie circles back around to Jeremy's front. "He's upset," she whispers.

"Obviously."

Bonnie smiles weakly. "But he's not compelled anymore. That's good."

"Tell _him_ that."

"I have," Bonnie says. "Give him some time. He didn't want this. He-"

"You said you wanted to," Jeremy says. "Right? It wasn't just me."

"No, it wasn't," Bonnie says, "but he's still mad."

"Is he mad at you?" Jeremy asks and he knows by the look on Bonnie's face that Tyler isn't _that_ mad at her.

"We'll figure it out," she promises, touching his arm. "He'll come around."

* * *

Tyler doesn't know why he came. He could have stayed at Bonnie's and fumed alone, but Bonnie said Jeremy was gonna need help with Kol's body. He felt obligated. This whole thing went down because of him. He should at least be there to deal with the aftermath. Now Kol's body is with Rebekah, he's in Elena Gilbert's house, and he'd like nothing more than to not be. While Bonnie is examining Jeremy's Mark, Caroline and Elena are talking in the kitchen. He doesn't bother eavesdropping. He doesn't care what they're saying.

_Isn't this what you wanted? People to pick you and only you the way you would pick them_? he asks himself.

That was, yes. but this wasn't. He didn't want thousands of nameless, faceless vampires dying because of him. None of that was what he wanted, but it's what he got.

"Hey," Jeremy says from behind him. "Can we talk?"

"What for?" Tyler snaps. "You obviously don't listen."

He hears Jeremy's voice in the back of his head. _There you go again, being a dick. _

"Tyler," Jeremy sighs. "Come on. We can go outside."

Outside does sound good. He follows Jeremy out on the front porch where they sit on the steps together.

"Bonnie told me you're thinking about leaving," Tyler says, looking out at the street. He looks at Caroline's car, the hood glowing beneath the streetlamps. "To come back here."

"Yeah," Jeremy says. "That was the deal."

"What deal?"

"I needed help with Kol," Jeremy says. "Elena agreed but only if I moved back in. So I'm moving back in." He raises his hands in an oh-well gesture.

Tyler shakes his head, still not looking at Jeremy. "Typical." Elena dragging Jeremy back, Elena wanting this from Jeremy when she still doesn't get it, doesn't want to get it. She'll never understand why they killed Damon and Stefan, but she'll blackmail her brother into living with her again.

Typical.

"Are you mad at me because I'm moving out or because I killed Kol?" Jeremy asks.

"Why not both?"

"As far as me moving out," Jeremy says, "it's not like we're never going to see each other again."

"That doesn't make it less stupid," Tyler says bitterly. "Do you _want_ to come back here?"

Jeremy shrugs, and Tyler knows that's code for "no". But Jeremy says, "I don't know."

"You don't have to," Tyler tells him. "Elena can't make you stay if you don't want to." What's she gonna do if Jeremy decides not to hold up his end of the deal? Not speak to Jeremy? She's already doing that.

"I promised."

Tyler rolls his eyes. "Whatever, Jeremy." Just a day ago they were as close as the three of them have ever been, sharing Bonnie's bed, Bonnie's body, her breathy sighs and gentle kisses. Sharing Bonnie's love. Now Jeremy wants to move out. "That's not our real problem."

Jeremy nods slowly, considering. "I didn't think we had a choice," he says. "It was kill Kol or let you rot in Bonnie's bedroom for who knows how long. He tried to kill Bonnie and me. He deserved what he got."

"Of course he did!" Tyler exclaims. "But his line didn't."

"Ty," he begins again, "I wanted to help you."

"I asked you not to."

"You're not compelled anymore," Jeremy reminds him. "Doesn't that count for something?"

"Sure," Tyler concedes. "Why don't you ask all the vampires who died tonight if it counts for more than their lives?"

"Tyler-"

"_I asked you not to_," Tyler repeats. It's a struggle to keep his voice down even though most of the people in the house right now can hear with no problem. "I don't need people going to those lengths for me. I don't need people dying for me. Not again." He looks to Jeremy pointedly, and he knows Jeremy knows who he's referring to. "I told you no, and you didn't care."

"I did it because I care," Jeremy says. "I care about you. You're my..." He forces out an aggravated breath. "You're my best friend. I don't have many friends - never have - but you're the best one I've ever had. You're like a brother to me. I'd do anything for you."

There it is again. Anything.

"That's the problem," Tyler says. "Damon and Stefan used to do that. Anything. For Elena. For each other. We're standing on top of a very thin line right now. Or maybe we crossed it a long time ago. I don't know, but it's the line that separates us from Damon and Stefan and why we killed them."

Jeremy looks down at his hands. "I can't take it back."

"Yeah, I know."

"If it was me or Bonnie in your place would you have done it?" Jeremy asks.

"That's not fair."

"Answer the question."

"It wasn't you or Bonnie," Tyler snaps. "It was me. You shouldn't have done it." As he stands up, the door opens, and Bonnie steps outside. She looks at them warily.

"Everything okay?" she asks.

"Yeah," Tyler says. "What's up?"

"Can I borrow your phone? I left mine at home, and I have to call Shane," she explains. "We'll need him to get to the tomb."

"Right," Tyler says, fishing his phone from his pocket and passing it to her. She holds it in her hand, but doesn't move to dial.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Jeremy assures her, looking over his shoulder. "We're good."

Bonnie doesn't look convinced, not even as Tyler squeezes one of her hands as he goes back into the house. He reclaims his spot in the living room only to be intercepted by Caroline who sits down across from him, her hands on her knees.

"Yeah?" Tyler says, after a few seconds of silence.

"I don't think I made my point back at Bonnie's."

"Yeah, you did."

"No," Caroline says. "I didn't. You know I have trouble with that sometimes." She wrings her hands. "Tyler, what I meant was, I know you had your reasons for killing Damon and Stefan. With this Kol thing I just meant there were reasons here, too. It wasn't _clean_ or pretty or perfect, but it was the only way."

"I already had this talk with Jeremy," Tyler says dully. He doesn't want to have it again.

"But not with me," she says. "Not like this. Tyler, don't hate us for wanting to help you. There are people on your side. No matter what happens - or what's happened - I'm on your side. I already talked to Bonnie about it, but I want us to be friends. And we're going to do that."

"Just like that?" Tyler says, trying to hide his amusement.

"Yep," Caroline says certainly. "Starting now. What do you think?"

Tyler glimpses Elena staring at them from across the room before she goes back to doing whatever it is she's doing. He looks back to Caroline. "Okay."

"Good," Caroline says with a smile. "That's really good."

She's still smiling when Bonnie approaches, sitting down next to Tyler. She passes him his phone. "Shane's in. He wants to go as soon as we can."

* * *

As soon as they get home, Bonnie tugs Tyler to bed with her. They lay there for hours, neither of them speaking. Hours later she's still awake. She thinks Tyler is, too, but she doesn't say anything in case he's not. It's the first time they've ever been really alone in her house. Really, truly alone. Jeremy's not coming back, not to stay anyway. It's the first time they've huddled beneath her sheets together without Jeremy in the house. Tyler's arms are wrapped around her waist, and the front of him is molded to the back of her where they lay.

She thinks of Caroline wanting to be friends again, insistent on being friends again. She thinks of Jeremy, trying to be Elena's brother again. And she thinks of Shane at his house preparing to take them to Silas, his tomb, and the cure. They'll be killing Klaus soon. Once and for all.

"Do you miss him?" Tyler asks. The sound of his voice makes her jump. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she says. "Do I miss Jeremy?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Bonnie says, "but you're here." She finds his hands somewhere around her and intertwines their fingers. She can feel his breath at the back of her neck then his lips leaving a kiss on the side of her neck.

"It's not like we're never gonna see him again," Tyler reminds her.

"I know," she says. "We just won't see him _here_ like he was again. It's weird."

"Yeah."

"I got so used to having you both here," she continues. "I haven't really shared this house with anyone in so long. My dad's always traveling and after my Grams died it was just me. Until it was me and you two."

"And now it's just me and you," he says. He holds her a little tighter. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't have anywhere to go, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to. I want to be here. With you."

Bonnie smiles to herself and rolls over so she can kiss his lips. "We're close now. To the end."

Starting now, they're in the final stretch. In a few days they could have the cure in hand, be standing over Klaus' dead body, be preparing for prom and graduation. They could be getting Tyler's mom back here to see him graduate. It's all right there, out of sight but within reach.

The doorbell rings.

Bonnie turns her head to look at him and he shrugs his shoulders. "Think it's Rebekah again? Klaus?"

"I don't know," she says, untangling herself from his arms to get up. He follows her downstairs where she pads through the dark of the living room, no longer lit with the glow of the TV like it was whenever Jeremy fell asleep with it on. Peering through the window in the door, she's unable to quiet the gasp that escapes her throat.

"What?" Tyler asks from behind her. "Who is it?"

"It's my mom."

She doesn't get to look at Tyler's bewildered expression because she opens the door. It's been awhile since Bonnie's been able to see the resemblance between her and Abby, but it's there. And it seems very prominent where Abby stands, looking right at her. She just looks, waiting. "Hello, Bonnie," Abby says with what's probably supposed to be a comforting smile. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says, motioning her inside.

Abby looks surprised by how easy it was, Bonnie letting her in. Bonnie is, too. "Your dad on a trip?" Abby asks.

"Always," Bonnie replies, closing the door. She stands a little closer to Tyler, who looks back and forth between them. She should probably introduce them, but it feels fake somehow, introducing her mom to her boyfriend. Abby is just a tumbleweed blowing through. She'll move along soon enough. There's not even a reason to come up with an explanation for why Tyler is spending the night with her. If Abby was her mother, Bonnie might try to make up an excuse, but she's not. Abby is free to think whatever she wants, come up with whatever explanation she wants. Only parents are allowed to scold their kids. Abby is _not_ her parent.

"What are you doing here?" Bonnie questions.

"Lucy didn't call?"

"I haven't checked my phone in a few hours," Bonnie admits. She meant to do that.

"We watched some of Kol Mikaelson's line die tonight," Abby explains. "Then Lucy explained everything. I knew you were looking for a cure, but Lucy failed to mention you were also looking for Silas."

"I'm not _also_ looking for Silas," Bonnie corrects. "Silas is buried with the cure."

"And you're going to get it?" Abby says. "Now that your friend's Mark is completed."

"Yes," Bonnie says, folding her arms across her chest. She doesn't like this, Abby here, in her house, speaking like they're family. She shouldn't have let her in. They could have had this conversation on the front porch. Much easier for Abby to run off from there.

"Silas is dangerous," Abby says. "He's-"

"I've already heard this lecture," Bonnie tells her impatiently. "I don't need to hear it again. Especially not from you."

Abby inhales. "Then I won't repeat it. Just let me go with you."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! Next chapter they head off to find the cure. **


	25. The Island

The Island

Tyler can't remember ever meeting Bonnie's mom. He's seen her dad around, even her Grams when she was still alive, but Abby Bennett's face is completely unfamiliar to him. She and Bonnie look alike, but Abby's face is marked by age. Bonnie's tense. He can feel it where she stands next to him, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her heart is pounding, and he reaches out to touch her back, trying to be comforting somehow.

"You want the cure now?" Bonnie asks.

"No," Abby says. "I don't need the cure. I've made peace with what I am. What I want is to keep you safe."

It's strange to see most people in Bonnie's house these days, when it's so usually occupied by just him and Bonnie and Jeremy. Abby looks even stranger than most do. Dressed all in black, with her hair hanging long and wavy past her shoulders, and her hands folded in front of her, she takes up very little space. But Bonnie's as uncomfortable as Tyler's ever seen her, and it makes the whole house seem small.

"I don't need you," Bonnie says. "I never have."

"You're in over your head," Abby says warningly. "Silas-"

"How are you going to help me, _Mom_?" Bonnie says. "What can _you_ do?"

"I don't know," Abby confesses, "but I'd feel better if I was there with you."

"I don't really care what makes you feel better," Bonnie snaps.

"I've helped you before," Abby reminds her. "You've _asked_ me for help before."

"I haven't asked you now."

Abby nods her head slowly and looks like she's trying to think of something to say, to try a new approach with Bonnie perhaps. "I don't believe we've met," she says with a tight smile as she extends her hand toward Tyler. "I'm Abby."

He shakes her hand. "Tyler Lockwood."

"You're Carol's son," Abby says. "You're grown much taller since I last saw you."

"Over a decade ago," Bonnie says.

"Yes," Abby agrees. "It's been a long time."

Tyler nods awkwardly. He doesn't know what to do. Neither Bonnie nor Abby moves to leave, and he won't leave Bonnie there alone, not unless she asks. They just stare at each other.

"When are you going to get the cure?" Abby asks.

"Soon," Bonnie answers. "Tomorrow, I think."

"You're skipping school?"

"After school," Bonnie sighs. "We'll probably miss the next day though."

"Let me go with you," Abby says again.

"No."

"Bonnie-"

"_No_," she repeats. "We're going, and we'll bring the cure back. You can go back to wherever it is you've been. You can hang out with Lucy or Jamie or whoever, but you don't need to be here."

Tyler avoids looking in Abby's direction. "Come on, Tyler," Bonnie says, slipping her hand into his. She's tugging him toward the stairs but she stops short and lets out a frustrated sigh.

"You can sleep in dad's room if you want," she says. "There's blood in the fridge. Tyler needs it so don't drink it all. In the morning I want you gone."

Tyler hears Abby's murmured thank you as Bonnie pulls him behind her up the stairs. She gets into bed without saying anything to him and rolls over, putting her back to him. He hesitates, wondering if he should say something, if she even wants to hear him say anything. Silently he lies down next to her, not touching her but wanting to. They've been lying there for several minutes when Bonnie turns over to face him. Her gaze searches his face, but he doesn't know what she's looking for. "Bonnie," he begins but she shakes her head.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."

* * *

Tyler wakes up first. The sun filters in through the windows, covering him and Bonnie in golden light. Outside he hears birds and the rattle of leafy tree branches that blow in the wind. Downstairs he hears someone walking around.

Abby's still there.

He's thirty minutes ahead of Bonnie's alarm and he climbs out of bed, padding down the stairs. When he gets to the kitchen Abby is sitting at the table with a bloodbag and the newspaper. "Morning," she says.

Tyler blinks at her. "You haven't left."

"No," Abby says with a polite smile. "Bonnie's still sleeping?"

"Yeah." He can imagine her reaction when she wakes up. Abby should have been gone _yesterday_, but he can't be the one to suggest that she leave. It's not his house, she's not his mom.

"Do you stay the night here often?" Abby questions, taking a long sip of blood. It makes Tyler thirsty so he grabs his own, and he steels himself for the awkward conversation they're about to have. At least he has something to do with his hands now.

"I've been staying here for a few months now," Tyler answers.

"Do you always sleep in her room?"

Tyler grimaces down at his bloodbag. "Sometimes."

_Sometimes we even have sex while I'm in there_.

Abby blinks at him as if that information is completely uninteresting. "Does Bonnie's dad know?"

"No."

She hums as she swallows down more blood. "Does your mom know?"

"My mom's not in town," Tyler says. "We're hiding her from Klaus."

Abby nods in understanding. "I'm sorry to hear that. You're a hybrid, aren't you? Lucy mentioned that."

He lets out a breath of relief at the change in subject.

"What else did Lucy mention?"

"Not nearly as much as she should have," Abby says down to the floor. "She didn't tell me this cure was with Silas. Or that Bonnie may have to awaken him to get it." She crosses one leg over the other. "Or that Bonnie has a live-in boyfriend."

Well maybe they haven't left that subject completely.

Tyler wonders if he should tell Abby that he's not Bonnie's boyfriend. He decides against it. That will just complicate matters even further. This might have been even worse if Abby had showed while Jeremy was still there. Or maybe it would have been better because Jeremy would have been there so Tyler wouldn't have to endure this conversation alone.

"Lucy did tell me you three killed Damon and Stefan Salvatore," Abby says, "and that you're targeting Klaus. Which is why you need the cure."

Tyler nods.

"So, what are your plans after graduation?"

He hovers near the counter, drinking down his blood and wishing he could just drown in it right now. He could try to excuse himself maybe, return to Bonnie's room and pretend this hadn't happened.

"College?" Abby asked.

"Hopefully."

"Where?"

"I haven't decided yet." He and Bonnie both got accepted to places in California. They haven't talked about it lately, but it rests in the back of his mind. He could go to California with her. They could go together. It's far. Far, far, far away from Mystic Falls. It could be perfect.

"You're just kids," Abby says. "You should be thinking of college, not Silas. He's not a job for kids. You shouldn't go. You don't know what you'll find there or what you'll bring back."

"We'll bring back the cure," Tyler says. "It's the only way to kill Klaus."

"I know it doesn't seem like it," Abby says, "after everything Klaus has done to all of you, but there are worse things than him in this world. Silas is one of them."

But Silas is in a tomb, and they'll do their best to keep him there. Klaus is walking around.

"She's not going to let you go with us," Tyler says.

Abby doesn't answer. He listens for Bonnie upstairs, still asleep.

"She cares about you," Tyler says. "Damon turning you was one of the reasons she decided to kill him. That's why she was so angry when Elijah was here. She feels _something_ for you, but Bonnie also has a habit of caring about people who don't care about her the way she deserves to be cared about."

And he knows all about shitty parents.

Sometimes Tyler wishes his dad had just left. It would have saved him and his mom some trouble. Other times he's not sure about that. When Richard Lockwood died, Tyler missed him, wanted him back, then wondered why he felt that way at all. Maybe that's all that matters, knowing your kids would feel something akin to grief if you died .

Bonnie's alarm sounds. A few seconds later and it turns off, quieted by a press of Bonnie's finger. He can hear the familiar sigh she lets out whenever she has to wake up for school. "Bonnie will be down soon," he says. He takes his bloodbag with him as he goes upstairs.

* * *

Waking up in his own bed has never felt so strange. The couch at Bonnie's was in some ways more comfortable than his full-size bed, in his own room. For one he knew what to expect when he woke up at Bonnie's, the rush for the bathroom, fast showers so he wouldn't use up all the hot water, eating fast in Bonnie's kitchen. He doesn't know what awaits him here.

Jeremy still has clothes left over at his house, clothes he forgot about in all the time he's been at Bonnie's. After his shower he stands in front of the mirror admiring the tattoo. It's spread and its growing has stopped. He doesn't know when it finally finished, sometime while he was sleeping, but he knows it is. He can feel it, the sense of completion that is now written across his skin.

_Finally_, he thinks before pulling on his shirt. Once he's dressed he joins Elena in the kitchen where she's scrambling eggs on the stove.

"Morning," she says, turning her head to look at him. She does a double take.

"What?" he asks, noticing her wide eyes.

"I can see it," Elena says. "Your Mark. I guess it really is finished now."

Jeremy rubs his arm where the mark creeps out. "Yeah. And I guess I should grab a jacket."

"Unless you want to tell everyone you got that tattoo over the weekend," she laughs. "I found the tents in the basement, sleeping bags, too. I found jackets and scarves and stuff. It's all in the living room. I packed up what I could already."

"Cool," Jeremy says, sitting at the table. Right after school they're on cure duty. He doesn't remember any of them specifically inviting Elena to tag along but since the company line is that they're getting this thing for Elena in the first place, it probably looks better that she go, especially if Rebekah is insisting on being there.

"How'd you sleep?" she asks, turning the stove off. She deposits eggs on a plate and places it in front of him.

"Fine," he lies. He tossed and turned for awhile, woke up a couple of times and thought about calling Bonnie and Tyler, just to see what they were doing. Then he decided not to, in case they were being romantic or something and he'd be interrupted. "You?"

"Fine," Elena echoes. "Have you talked to Bonnie and Tyler?"

"Not, but I have to go over and get my backpack," he says. "My books and stuff."

They eat breakfast quietly, Jeremy chewing his eggs and Elena drinking her blood from a coffee mug. When he finishes, he waits for awhile just in case she has something she wants to say. She's reading over her biology notebook, covered in diagrams on cells and experiment notes, not looking at him.

Finally, Jeremy says, "I should go over there."

"Do you want me to drive you?" she asks, flipping her notebook closed. It's like a switch has been flipped, making her aware of his presence again.

"I can walk," he says. He heads upstairs to grab a sweatshirt and pulls it on to hide the Mark. When he goes back down Elena is still in the kitchen. "I'll see you at school."

He's at the door when she says, "You don't have to stay here."

Jeremy turns around, eyes narrowed in confusion. "What?"

Elena's standing now with her hands hanging at her sides and her mouth twisted into a frown. "If you really don't want to be here, you don't have to stay," she says. "You can go back with Bonnie and Tyler. Kol's dead. That's not gonna change if you move out. So if you don't want to be here then you don't have to."

"Calling it quits kinda soon aren't you?"

Elena shrugs. "If this is how it's gonna be then-"

"Give me a minute to get used to it again," Jeremy says. "We'll figure it out. What happened to wanting to _try_?"

"I _am_ trying," Elena says. "I'm going to keep trying. I just don't know if you are."

"Elena, you can drive me to Bonnie's if you want to," he sighs. "I just didn't want to put you through the trouble. It didn't mean anything."

"It's not about that," she says. "Not completely."

"Just give it some time," Jeremy says. "I'm here, okay? I'm not gonna leave. Do you want to talk about Stefan and Damon?"

"You have to get your stuff."

"I'll ask Tyler to bring it school for me," he says. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what to say."

Yeah, that feeling's mutual.

Jeremy sniffs. "So, do you want to drive me to Bonnie's then?"

Elena grabs her keys.

* * *

Bonnie ignores Abby. As best she can, she ignores her. She doesn't even tell her to leave. While Tyler's in the shower, Bonnie makes herself some tea and pretends she doesn't hear Abby's "Good morning".

When Jeremy comes over, looking for his backpack, he stops short upon seeing Abby. He opens his mouth to speak.

_Don't talk to her_, Bonnie tells him. _We're not talking to her_. She peeks out the door to see Elena in her car at the curb, wearing a pair of giant sunglasses. She seems to be looking in Bonnie's direction and she considers waving at her, but Elena looks away. Jeremy gathers his stuff without saying a word.

That's right. It's Caroline who wants to be friends again, not Elena.

Bonnie feels Abby approach from behind her, peeking out the door as well. "I see you two aren't doing very well."

Bonnie almost demands to know why Abby thinks she can comment on the state of friendships she hasn't been around to know anything about, but she remembers that would count as talking to her. Instead she checks the clock on the wall, wishing it would go faster so they can leave.

"I'll see you guys at school," Jeremy says as he's headed out the door. She can tell he wants to kiss her, but he hesitates in front of Abby. After seeing Bonnie retire to her bedroom with Tyler last night, she'll surely have questions.

Abby's ruining everything.

She gives him a feeble wave before he goes.

"Bonnie," Abby says. "Are we going to talk?"

"I don't even know why you're still here," Bonnie says. "I told you I wanted you to leave."

"I didn't want to go without us talking first."

"We talked last night."

"I mean about other things," Abby says. "How you're doing."

Tyler comes downstairs, and it's a relief to see him. "We have to go to school," she says, grabbing her bag and going out to the car.

* * *

The school day goes by at a crawl. Some compulsion here and there and the four of them - Bonnie, Elena, Jeremy and Tyler - are excused from classes. Rebekah probably works much of the same angle, but Bonnie hears nothing from her except a text to confirm the time they'll be leaving.

"Be careful," Caroline says as Bonnie throws her stuff into the back of Elena's car. She's driving them to the airport, where they'll board a plane that will take them to Nova Scotia where they'll get into a car that will deposit them at a dock which will have boats to take them to the island where Shane says Silas and the cure are buried.

"We will," Bonnie promises.

Caroline nods her head toward Bonnie's front door. "What about her?"

Bonnie turns her head to see Abby lingering on the porch with her arms wrapped around herself. She finds Bonnie's eyes and holds her gaze until Bonnie looks away. Then she feels stupid. It should be Abby looking away, not her.

"I told her I want her gone by the time we get back," Bonnie says. "She said she wanted to see me off at least."

"At least you don't have to take her with you," Caroline says. She reaches out for a hug. "Good luck."

Over Caroline's shoulder Bonnie sees Rebekah coming down the street with a giant bag on her back. She looks ridiculous, walking around with it. When she reaches them she doesn't bother with niceties. "Are we leaving or not?"

* * *

"Oh, Canada," Rebekah says with a breathy sigh as they clamber out of the boats. She steps out easily, splashing through the shallow water without a backwards glance at any of them and pulling her sunglasses down over her eyes. "Hard to believe that ancient cure is buried here of all the places on earth. We might as well be in an episode of that show. You know the one. I've seen reruns. There's an island, smoke, annoying people. Do you know which one I'm referring to?"

"Yes," Bonnie says as she follows behind her, nearly falling face first into the water before Shane grabs hold of her to keep her steady. She doesn't thank him, but goes after Rebekah where they march up onto the beach.

It's all very, very green. The last time it took a vacation it was to visit her dad's side of the family for the summer, but she's never on an island before. It's probably supposed to be a lot more relaxing than this particular trip.

"This way," Shane says as soon as Tyler's tugged their boat onto the sand where it sits. He leads them toward the trees.

"Are there no people on this island?" Jeremy asks.

"Not really, no," Shane answers. "Come on."

Bonnie tightens her grip on her bag and walks after him. Tyler walks next to her. They're all quiet. She'd talk if their company wasn't so mixed. What is she supposed to say to Tyler and Jeremy that she can also say in front of Elena? That she can also say in front of Rebekah? That she can also say in front of Shane?

It's going to be a long trip.

Rebekah walks nearest to Shane, in a hurry to reach their destination. The only thing keeping her from passing him up is that he's leading the way. Otherwise she would have overtaken him already. They make camp as it starts getting dark.

Rebekah erects her tent as far from them as possible without enclosing herself in the trees. Bonnie glances in Jeremy's direction where he's gotten his up right alongside Elena's. The Gilberts were never short on camping gear. Bonnie meanwhile has only Tyler's to fall back on, a giant tent, perfect for a Lockwood, plus equally large sleeping bags.

"You can sleep with him if you want," Tyler says, whispering as he throws down his sleeping bag inside.

Bonnie pulls her hat down a little further on her ears and cast him a sidelong glance. "I can't sleep with you?"

Tyler smiles a little. "You can always sleep with me."

"Bonnie?"

They turn at the same time to see Shane standing behind them, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. Bonnie feels herself deflate. "Can we talk?" he asks.

She had been doing pretty well with avoiding him. On the plane she pretended to be asleep for much of it. On the boat Shane had been too occupied with steering to speak to her. But she was idle and now she can't ignore him.

Reluctantly she follows Shane toward the center of their camp, near the fire that she started for them. "What?" she demands.

"I've looked over Jeremy's mark," Shane says, pulling pictures Jeremy took for them from his bag. "And I think I know what they mean."

Bonnie blinks. "Please share."

"All of these are the story of Silas and Qetsiyah," he says, spreading them out on the ground at her feet. "We already know that. These explain the cure." He jabs at the pages with his index finger pointing to the coiling lines that trail up and down Jeremy's bicep. "It's buried with him. It's just..."

He taps the photo pointing her to the words scrawled on the edge. She bends forward to read: _One dose._

"Are you sure?" Bonnie asks.

Shane nods.

Rebekah isn't going to be happy. But then again, they're using it for the same purpose. Sort of. Maybe they'll just let her have it, let her cure Klaus so they can go about their business. But will Rebekah still be on board once she learns they don't intend to let Klaus grow old and die? That they're planning on killing him now? Bonnie decides she doesn't have to know. They'll deal with that when they have the cure in hand.

"It's fine," Bonnie says. "What else?"

"When we get there it will require you and Jeremy both to open Silas' tomb," Silas explains. "You'll need to channel the power of his Mark."

Bonnie nods. "Okay. We done?"

"No," Shane says. "Here, these markings." They look more like ancient scratches. If it says a word, Bonnie can't read it. "I think it means Bennett. Your name."

"Yes, I know what my name is."

Shane chuckles down at the pictures. "Only the magic of a Bennett witch can awaken Silas."

"I'm not waking him," Bonnie says. "I told you that. And I shouldn't need to, should I?" Shane's expression is a cross between disappointed and impatient. "If there's a way to get the cure without waking him up," she goes on, "then I'll do it that way. And why would you want me to? I know you want your wife back, but why would you want her the way Silas will make her? She'll be _his_, not yours. She won't be herself."

"She'll be alive," Shane says. "And I don't believe that."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Why not? Why is _that_ the one part you find so hard to believe?"

"Because it's not true," Shane insists. "I've been here before, Bonnie. Silas spoke to me."

"Silas is in a tomb."

"He _spoke_ to me," he repeats. "He told me what to do, showed me my wife. He assured me he could return her to me. That's how all of this started."

Bonnie shakes her head and glances over to Tyler who is watching them warily. "Shane," she says, "I'm sorry about your wife. We've all lost people, but I'm not raising Silas. I'm here for the cure, nothing else." She moves to return to Tyler**, **but Shane speaks to her again.

"What if you don't have a choice?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bonnie says, whirling back around.

Shane swallows. "It means the cure is down there, but we don't know what state it's in. What if you have to awaken him anyway?"

All these what-ifs.

"I'm not waking Silas."

* * *

Tyler rolls in his sleep. He's gotten used making contact with Bonnie's body during the night. Somehow, someway he always touches her. But he brushes up against nothing but empty air this time, and his eyes snap open.

She's gone.

She's probably with Jeremy, but he climbs out of the tent anyway. Their little camp is quiet. From Rebekah's tent several paces away and Elena's at the opposite side, it's silent. He hears Elena's heartbeat, Rebekah's, too. But there are some missing.

He can't hear Jeremy's or Bonnie's or Shane's.

"Fuck," he hisses, marching toward Elena's tent.

"Elena," he barks. She wakes up immediately, grabbing hold of the stake she's slid into her sleeping bag with her. He has no idea what she plans to do with that. If Rebekah tried to kill her, that little thing wouldn't do much.

She lowers it when she sees him. "What?"

"Jeremy and Bonnie are gone. So is Shane."

He goes to Rebekah's tent next, hearing Elena scrambling out of hers behind him. She looks in Jeremy's tent for herself. "Where are they?" she demands.

"If I knew I'd be with them," Tyler says. He doesn't have to wake Rebekah. She's already emerging from her tent, brushing her hair from her face.

"Bonnie and the hunter are missing are they?" she says. "The professor as well?"

"Yeah," Tyler confirms.

"They're going for the cure," Rebekah says.

Elena shakes her head. "They wouldn't go without us."

"Excuse me for not putting all my faith in those three," Rebekah snaps.

"We can't trust Shane," Tyler sighs. "We knew that when we came here. He must have done something."

"Then I suppose we should be looking for them," Rebekah sighs.

Elena's already nosing around the trees, examining the ground. "There are tracks over here," she says. "They went this way." They grab their bags and sling them over their backs. There's nothing they really need in there except for bloodbags, but they barely feel the weight as they walk.

Rebekah makes a clucking sound with her tongue. "If your brother ends up dead at the end of this little excursion that will be quite the irony, won't it?"

Elena doesn't answer her.

"No one's dying," Tyler snaps.

"I won't be too upset about it, if I'm being honest," Rebekah adds.

Elena spins to face her. "Shut up or I swear to God-"

If Elena means to be threatening, she fails. Rebekah throws back her head and laughs. The sound arcs through the trees, seeming to bounce off the trees to reverberate in their ears. "I could break off a sharp point of wood right now and shove it into your heart. "

"We have to find Bonnie and Jeremy," Tyler says impatiently. "Let's go."

"Because you want that cure to condemn Klaus to a mortal life," Elena says bitterly, spinning around and resuming their hike. "You're all bent out of shape because Kol's dead, but you're here with us so you can punish Klaus. Don't pretend to care about your family now, Rebekah."

Elena doesn't stand a chance. Rebekah's on her in a second, snapping her neck and watching her crumple to the ground with vague interest. "I'm going off on my own," she says, turning and stepping through the trees. "If I find Bonnie and Jeremy I'll bring them back."

* * *

Tyler pulls a bloodbag from his bag and cracks it open just before Elena wakes up. She looks around, her head snapping in every direction, searching for a sign of Rebekah's shiny blond head. "She's gone," he says, holding the bag out to her. "She's looking on her own."

"We should find them before she does," Elena says. She hesitates upon taking the bag from him, but does anyway.

"If she finds them, she won't hurt them," Tyler says. "Not that she could with Bonnie there. Besides, she needs them." He zips his bag back up and stands. "Ready to go?"

Elena drinks down the rest of the blood quickly and drops the plastic to the ground. "Yeah."

* * *

Bonnie's hand is clammy in Jeremy's as they follow Shane through the trees. She's still not sure how she got here, what led her. It probably had something to do with the man walking at Shane's side. He's taller than all of them with long dreadlocks that stop at his waist. She can feel the magic pouring off of him in waves. What is he here for? If Bonnie's the one who can open the tomb and awaken Silas, what purpose will this one serve?

"Where are we going?" Bonnie asks, tightening her grip on Jeremy's fingers. The only light is from their flashlights, lighting up small sections of the forest at once. It's not enough light, but she senses with her magic, looking for signs of anyone else. There's nothing human or vampire near them.

"To Silas' tomb," Shane answers. "To get your cure."

"I'm not raising him," Bonnie reminds him. She can take them both if need be. Shane won't be an issue, being human and having no magic. She's never really gone up against another witch before, but she's stronger now. And she's a fast learner.

"So you've said. Do you want your cure or not?"

"Why'd you have to separate us from the group?" Jeremy demands. "We were coming here anyway." He's taking this better than she is.

"The extra people weren't needed," Shane says. "It works better this way. We only have the necessities. This way."

The witch is leading the way now, walking quietly. The mouth of the cave is hidden in the darkness, so well that Bonnie doesn't realize they're approaching it until her feet sound against smooth rock and not dirt and grass.

"We'll be okay, Bonnie," Jeremy whispers to her. "Tyler's probably looking for us already."

But he won't find them. This island is huge. She could attempt to alert him somehow, give him some kind of beacon to follow but the witch's presence makes her nervous. They need her and Jeremy, but they don't need Tyler or the others. She doesn't want anyone else getting hurt. They wander through the darkness together, Shane and the witch whispering quietly to one another. When Shane finally stops, he lets out a relieved sigh. "Here we are." He motions to them. "Come on."

They step toward him, leaning to look down into the giant hole open before them. Inside of it, Bonnie can't see anything but more darkness, so black that it looks endless. Shane is pulling rope from his bag. "Ready?"

Jeremy's fingers tighten on hers.

They're not in Mystic Falls anymore.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	26. Something Great

Something Great

Tyler can't remember the last time he was alone with Elena. It was a long time ago it seems. Were they talking about Caroline? About Klaus? Was it when he was helping her get away from Klaus? He can't recall.

They've been going for awhile, through the dark. They don't speak to each other. Since he gave her the blood awhile ago, they haven't found anything else to chat about. They go at vampire speed. He thinks they should have found _something _by now, but these woods are bigger than he realized. Tyler listens for any movement. He can only hear the occasional animal, the rustle of leaves in the wind, a water source somewhere nearby. No human heartbeats, no voices, nothing.

"This isn't working," Elena says. "This island is too big. We're not gonna find them like this."

Tyler spins around. "Do you have a better idea?"

She doesn't. He doesn't. This is all they've got. Neither of them is just going to sit at camp and hope Bonnie and Jeremy wander back with Shane when they're finished.

They start walking again.

* * *

Bonnie and Jeremy watch as Shane lowers himself into the hole behind them. The witch went first to keep an eye on Bonnie and Jeremy. He now stands along the wall, staring at them with cold eyes, like he expects them to try something while Shane's coming down. Around them there's nothing but darkness. The hole is just that: a hole. Walls surround them on every side. Bonnie slipped a little on the descent only for Jeremy to help her to her feet. She hasn't let go of his hand since.

_We'll be fine_, she assures him. _I promise_.

Jeremy gives her a smile and squeezes her hand reassuringly. _I know._

"Ready?" Shane says cheerily as he detaches himself from the rope. He looks to Bonnie eagerly. She locks her gaze on Jeremy instead.

"I'll take that as a yes," Shane says, clapping his hands together. "Shirt off, Jeremy."

Jeremy releases her hand to pull off his jacket and shirt, throwing them onto the ground.

"You'll need to touch him," Shane says.

Bonnie does. She feels Jeremy's heart pounding against his chest, warm and solid beneath her hands. It helps her breathe better, makes it easier to think. She can get them out of this. They'll do this like they intended, without Shane and his witch accomplice there. If they have their way, Silas will be walking out of here with them.

"Let your instincts guide you, Bonnie," Shane says. "Focus on finding the tomb. Focus on what you want. The Mark will do the rest. Everything you need is right here with you. All you-"

"Shut up, Shane," Bonnie says. Jeremy's lips quirk upward into a smile. She flattens her palms against his chest. So many times she's done this, felt Jeremy's body pliant and willing beneath her hands. Those times she felt safe, they were always safe. It was just her and Jeremy.

It's like that now.

Shane doesn't matter, this witch doesn't matter.

There's a growing warmth at the tips of her fingers, an electricity that hugs her fingertips and shoots up and down her fingers, to her arms, to her chest. She feels magic flaring in her chest and it is just as comforting as Jeremy's skin against hers. She knows magic, it knows her. It won't hurt her. She's the one who will open Silas' tomb, who will take the cure. Not Shane, not this other witch. It's her.

Bonnie hears stone breaking. She's never heard that sound before, similar to shattering glass but worse. Louder, harsher. Stone crumbles and falls somewhere around them, but she doesn't look where. Her eyes are closed, and she keeps them that way. Seeing will only distract her. She has to focus, on her and Jeremy, on the cure, on Shane and the witch, on making sure neither of them leaves this island happy.

Even if that means they don't leave this island at all.

"We'll be okay," she hears Jeremy say. He has to lean closer to her, yell into her ear.

"Yeah," Bonnie agrees, opening her eyes. His brown ones are locked on hers. "We will."

She holds his gaze as she feels out with her magic, lets it find the witch. He's the only one who could stop her, the only power Shane has. He's distracted now, looking toward the wall where it is breaking open. Bonnie works quickly, breaking his neck as she's broken so many vampires'. She doesn't watch him fall, but looks at Shane instead. He draws away from her slightly, mouth gaping open.

"You'll be next," she warns him.

* * *

"This isn't working."

Tyler closes his eyes but doesn't break his stride, reminding himself that he and Elena are both stressed out, worried and are playing a bad game of hide-and-seek on a secluded island. They both want to go home. He tells himself he's probably annoying Elena just as much as she's annoying him though he's not sure _how_ he'd be annoying her considering he hasn't opened his mouth for miles.

"I heard you the first time," he says, reigning in his impatience. _Don't be a dick_, he tells himself.

They're not gonna find Bonnie and Jeremy if they're standing still so it's better to keep moving, even if he doesn't know what they're headed toward or if it's the right direction. For all they know Bonnie and Jeremy are the opposite way and every step takes them further and further away from them. Now would be an excellent time for Bonnie to work some magic and let him know where they are.

"We shouldn't even be here," Elena grumbles from behind him.

"Why's that?"

Elena doesn't answer.

"Why's that?" Tyler repeats. He really wants to know. Why _shouldn't_ they be here? Why shouldn't they be on this island going after the one thing that may free them from Klaus for good? Why shouldn't they be finding this cure that will set them all on a path to something normal?

"I don't know," Elena says, in the tone of a person who definitely knows. "Is finding this cure really worth something happening to Bonnie and Jeremy?"

"If keeping Stefan and Damon around was worth it despite all the things that did happen to Bonnie and Jeremy," Tyler says, "then so is this."

Elena stops in place even as he turns and resumes his walk.

If Bonnie was here she would have given him a very dark look.

"And here I thought we were going to get through this whole trip without bringing that up," Elena says. "Silly me."

Jeremy's voice rings in Tyler's ear. _There you go again, being a dick. _He should stop now, before it gets worse, but he can't. He's tired and he's thirsty, but he doesn't want to stop walking to drink. Bonnie and Jeremy are missing, Rebekah may find them first, Klaus is alive back in Mystic Falls and the only way to change that is on this island somewhere, and Tyler's alone with Elena. _Don't be a dick_, he reminds himself again. The reminder slams against the wall of his brain, over and over. It slides off each time, refusing to stick.

"I'm just saying," Tyler says. "We're not the only ones who are gonna benefit from this cure. You should be happy. Here's another thing that's going to help you. Isn't that what you like? If it'll help you, why shouldn't be do it? Why shouldn't we be here if it'll help you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

_Such a dick, _Jeremy's voice says.

"Forget it," Tyler says. "Let's just keep moving."

Bonnie and Jeremy are their priority. They have to find Bonnie and Jeremy.

Elena picks up the pace to reach his side. "Answer me. What's that supposed to mean?" She grabs his arm. "_Tyler._" He shakes her off, but stops walking. She looks up at him with expectant annoyance, waiting for his reply. She's already decided she won't like what he'll say, and she's right to feel that way. She won't like it.

"I'm not the only one this cure is helping," she snaps when he remains silent. "We all want Klaus out of our lives. So what did you mean?"

"I meant," Tyler says finally, "that you've never been opposed to doing things if they'll benefit you, no matter the risk. I don't see why now is any different."

He watches Elena's face contort with anger. It's strangely satisfying to see.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nope," Tyler says. "I mean, you're blackmailing Jeremy into moving back in with you."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's just another Elena-ism," Tyler says. "You get what you want, the rest of us be damned. Sometimes literally. " She presses her lips together into a line that quivers with anger. Then she brushes past him, marching through the trees.

"That's why you kept Damon and Stefan around, isn't it?" Tyler calls after her. "Because you loved them? Because you wanted them?"

Elena whirls around and she's in his face in seconds, enraged. "Yes," she says. "I loved Stefan. Damon was always there for me when I needed him. They-"

"Yeah,_ you_ loved Stefan. Damon was always there for _you_," Tyler says. "They were good for _you_. It's exactly what I said, Elena: If it's for you, screw the rest of us."

He thinks she may take a swing at him.

They'll have fun explaining that one to Bonnie and Jeremy.

She doesn't try to hit him. Instead she shakes her head from side to side, backing away from him. "You killed them, and you didn't care what it would do to anyone else. I heard it was your idea. Did you think about Caroline before you came up with that plan, Tyler? Did you think of Caroline, who you claimed to _love_, while you were plotting to kill her friend?"

_Yes_.

"Maybe Stefan and Damon were terrible," Elena says.

_Maybe? Definitely._

"But how were you any better? You don't think you stooped to their level?"

"Are you admitting they actually had a level to stoop to?" Tyler asks. "That's real progress for you, Elena."

"You don't get it," she says, turning away. She starts walking again. He follows her steps along the wooded path, leaves and branches cracking as they walk. He'd think she was trying to outrun him, but if she was she would have sped out of here already.

"No, I get it," Tyler says conversationally. "You think I should feel bad because I killed them? You think I should have been better than Stefan and Damon? Right? But why's it up to _us_ to be _better_? Why is it the victims who have to be better? I didn't owe them anything more than what I gave them: stakes to the heart. We've all gotten screwed," he says. "You, me, Bonnie, Jeremy, Caroline, Matt. _All of us. _ But you're the only one that matters. Your pain, your suffering it all matters more than ours."

Elena stops walking long enough to respond. "No, it doesn't." She turns around completely. "I've never thought that."

"You keep wondering how we could have done it. How could we have done that to you? What kind of people are we that we could kill Damon and Stefan so easily and without any remorse? And that's a good question," he admits, "but you're looking at it from the wrong angle."

Elena folds her arms, rolls her eyes. "I am?"

"You are," he confirms. "_How_ could we have done that? What was it about Stefan and Damon that made it so easy to kill them? Is it possible that they deserved it? Is it possible that after all this time we just got fed up with being their punching bags and their sacrificial lambs and their afterthoughts? Is that _at all_ possible?"

He doesn't know if she's hearing him, but it feels good to say it. For all he knows it's just them in these woods. Out here she's not Elena, Bonnie's best friend. Or Elena, Jeremy's older sister. Here she's just Elena and she loved Damon and Stefan, who made all their lives hell.

"You're right," he says. "It was my idea. I went to Bonnie. The only person I thought about was Caroline, not you. You never thought about me so why should I think about you? I'm not your brother. If we're being honest, I'm not even your friend. You're just a girl I've known for my entire life. After this year we never have to see each other again, but you want to see Jeremy. Bonnie, too. You say you're trying. Jeremy moved back in with you, even though he didn't want to, because you say you're trying. You're not."

Elena steps toward him, eyes narrowed and fists clenched. "I'm not trying? That's _all_ I've been doing? Ever since that night with Bonnie I've been trying, but it's not easy. It's-"

"You're not trying," Tyler repeats. "You still want Jeremy to say he's sorry. You want him to admit he did something wrong. He's not going to apologize, and he shouldn't. We did something great when we killed them. They deserved it. That's what you're not getting, that's what you're not trying to get: They deserved it."

Finally he drops his bag onto the ground and unzips it, rifling around for a bloodbag. "You're not gonna be able to forgive them. You think Jeremy and Bonnie agreeing to do this was because they stopped caring about you. That's not what it was. They just started caring about themselves more than you." He finds one, rips it open and sucks down the blood. "Is that why you're mad, Elena? Because in the end what you would think didn't matter?"

Elena huffs out an embittered, "Fuck you", and speeds out of sight.

* * *

Bonnie breaks Shane's legs. Both of them bend at awkward ankles, the crack sharp in the air. Since the wall fell to pieces, the tomb is eerily silent, a silence shattered by Shane's breaking bones and his cry of pain as he falls to the floor. She doesn't look back at him as she tells Jeremy to follow her through the wall, now split open with its jagged edges leading into more yawning darkness. Jeremy barely has time to grab his shirt and put it back on.

Bonnie walks like she knows where she's going. She uses Shane's flashlight to illuminate the way, the beam bouncing over the sharp, uneven edges of the walls, the ground beneath their feet.

"Are you okay?" Jeremy asks.

Bonnie's head bobs as she nods. "Yeah. Are you?"

"Yeah."

The Mark feels different somehow though he can't articulate, even to himself how different it feels. It feels as though it has lost something vital, something that made it what it was. He feels for Bonnie's hand in the dim light.

"We'll be fine," she says. "We'll be out of here soon." Is she trying to convince Jeremy or herself?

"I know."

They walk onward. The tunnel goes on and on and on. He wonders how the others are faring without them. It's probably an interesting experience they're having just Tyler, Elena and Rebekah. If they find them fast when they're done they may be able to reunite with them before the three of them end up killing each other.

Finally the beam of light falls on another wall ahead of them. Bonnie lowers the light so it falls on a raised altar. It extends across the wall with the hulking mass on top of it graying and covered in thick webs. Bonnie rushes forward, shining the flashlight onto it. "It's him," she says as Jeremy steps closer.

Silas.

There's a mask over the face, made of stone with holes where they eyes should be through all Jeremy can see is blackness. After all this time it appears that Silas has been reduced to something a little more than a mummy. His body is thin and his limbs look brittle.

"And our cure," Bonnie says, nodding down to Silas' hand. It's blackened and ancient looking. The stone vial he grasps seems to blend in with his frail fingers. "We did it. We found it."

Jeremy is grinning as he leans in to plant a quick kiss on her lips. "We did it," he echoes.

"I'll get Tyler here," she says. "He should be here." She closes her eyes, murmurs to a spell, and Jeremy reaches to touch the bottle.

Elena didn't go far. Tyler's not walking for five minutes when he finds her again, waiting up ahead with her arms crossed and her back against a tree. Her face remains impassive when she sees him, but she waits for him to catch up before she starts walking again.

When they take a break so Elena can drink some of her own blood, Tyler sits on the ground. He leans his head back against a tree, closes his eyes and breathes. He never thought he would miss Mystic Falls, but he misses it now. At least there they know what they're dealing with. Now all he knows for sure is that he's lost in the forest with Elena, Rebekah hasn't made an appearance, and Bonnie and Jeremy are only God knows where doing only God knows what with Shane.

Elena pretends he's not even there. He does the same with her.

They're playing the same useless game, wandering the forest without any point of reference. Now neither of them complains. He wonders if they should split up. They'd cover more ground that way, and they wouldn't have to stare at the other after their argument. But their group is fractured enough.

Elena sits down across from him to drink her blood, and he makes an effort not to look at her. She finishes the bag, and Tyler knows he should get up and start walking again but he can't make himself. He doesn't know where to go. He hasn't known this whole time but now it feels so much more disorienting. They have no idea where they are. At this point they may not be able to find their way back to camp. Maybe Rebekah has fared better.

"When I told Jeremy I was adopted, he didn't care," Elena says suddenly. The only reason he hears her is because he hears everything. She's speaking so quietly a human may not notice she's talking. "That should have been the thing that would turn our lives upside down, but when you compare it to vampires and werewolves and all this other stuff, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. It didn't change anything between us. When my birth mom was here, when she was _awful_, Bonnie wanted to help me through it even though she didn't want anything to do with Stefan and Damon then."

Tyler wants to tell her he doesn't want to hear it, but he can't tell if they're about to fight again or not. If they're not, he doesn't want to force it. He's doesn't have the energy. He doesn't have the energy to do anything. All he can do is cross his fingers and hope Bonnie and Jeremy come out of this in one piece, together and in near perfect condition. All he can do is listen to Elena talk.

"Then one day," she goes on. "I woke up, and this is where I was. Stefan and Damon were dead, and you, Bonnie and Jeremy had killed them. I don't know how to go back, but I really want to. I want us to be what we were."

"You can't," Tyler says, finally looking at her. She's trying not to cry, but he can see that she's close. "You can only be what you are, whatever that is."

"I do love Jeremy," Elena says. "And Bonnie. I do."

"That doesn't mean anything to me," Tyler says. "Tell them."

Elena wipes her eyes. "There you go again," she says, sniffing. "Being a dick."

She's surprised when Tyler starts laughing. She's definitely Jeremy's sister.

"What's so...?" Her attention is drawn by something behind him, and she cranes her neck to see. "What's that?"

Tyler turns. There are leaves behind them, blowing in the wind. They move strangely, in a very specific movement, to form themselves into a line. He sees more of them stirring, placing themselves carefully several feet ahead. Pushing himself to his feet, he moves closer. He's right next to them, one of the leaves brushing against the toe of his shoe, when they burst into flames.

"Shit." He jumps backward in surprise, and Elena hurries to his side to see.

The leaves ignite, the flames spreading from one to the other until a fiery line extends through the dark woods. It goes even further than he realized. The glow fills the darkness, makes it shine.

Tyler grabs his bag. "Come on."

"What's going on?" Elena asks as she picks hers up, too.

Isn't it obvious? "It's Bonnie."

* * *

"He's got a good grip," Jeremy says as he pulls at Silas' fingers. They looked weak at first glance, but all this time down there has made Silas' grip unbreakable. "I can't get it."

"Let me try," Bonnie says, and Jeremy steps backward so she can take his place. She could sever Silas' hand if need be. It's not like he'll be needing it down here. She rests a hand on the cold line of his hand and jumps when there's a voice in the doorway.

"I've been looking everywhere for you two," Rebekah says. Bonnie pauses, looking toward her as flips her hair over her shoulder. Even in the darkness, it shines.

"Where are Tyler and Elena?" Bonnie asks. The spell worked, that she knows, but she's surprised Rebekah's there so fast unless they were closer than they anticipated.

"We split up," Rebekah says, "but I saw your signal. And I see you've found our cure. Not as extensive in number as we'd hoped, is it?" She steps closer to Bonnie, looking down at Silas calmly. She raises her eyebrows at his tight grip. "Do you need help with that?"

She doesn't wait for an answer before she reaches to snap Silas' fingers. Jeremy had been pulling at his hand for at least ten minutes and had no luck, but Rebekah breaks them with ease. Once his fingers are splayed in awkward positions, she plucks the cure from his hand.

"Rebekah-" Bonnie begins, glancing toward Jeremy who looks at the cure in Rebekah's hand warily.

"I think we're done here," Rebekah says. "I'm quite comfortable with sharing, Bonnie, but I doubt it will be as effective if not taken as a full dose. See you at home?"

She looks at Bonnie like she's waiting for her to do something, to snap her spine to attempt an aneurysm. _Something._ She looks surprised when Bonnie does nothing. It doesn't have to be like this. They want the same thing. She can let Rebekah run off with it right now, and they'll still get what they want in the end.

"Lost your mojo, Bonnie?" Rebekah questions with a cool smirk. "Or have you-"

She stops short, her smirk slipping from her face. Bonnie looks at her confusedly. "Rebekah?"

The Original's eyes widen as she raises her empty hand to her chest. She seems to be having trouble breathing, if vampires could breathe. Blood spits from her mouth, and she falls to her knees. It's not until she's fallen at her feet does Bonnie notice the shape in the entryway, a woman with dark, curly hair and brown skin, dressed like she's been hiking.

Bonnie knows instantly she's a witch. The magic comes off of her in waves.

Jeremy looks to Bonnie, comes closer to her. "What-"

Bonnie tenses, scrolling through a list of spells she knows. The witch must realize what she's doing because she holds up a hand. "You don't want to do that," the witch says. "I've been practicing much longer than you."

Jeremy is lifted into the air, hovering inches off of the ground. He claws at his neck, where his veins are protruding. He gasps for air, kicking his feet, pulling at binds that aren't there.

"Don't," Bonnie says.

"_You_ don't," the witch says. "Cooperate and he'll live."

"Okay," Bonnie says. "Just let him go."

As soon as she lets Jeremy go, as soon as Jeremy's safe, she'll do with this witch what she did with the last.

The witch smiles in satisfaction and lets Jeremy fall to the ground where he coughs and sputters, sucking down breath. She touches his shoulder and he falls unconscious, slumping onto the stone floor and becoming still.

"He's only asleep," the witch assures Bonnie. "He'll awaken when we're done." She steps over Rebekah, still spitting up blood but awake. She kicks the vampire with her boot, nudging her out of the way so she can stand closer to Bonnie.

"When we're done what?" Bonnie demands.

"Awakening Silas," the witch says.

"No."

Rebekah moves on the floor, pushing herself to her feet. Blood covers her chin. She still looks unsteady but maintains her hold on the cure. Without a word or another glance in Bonnie's direction, she's gone, her blond hair a brief glimmer in the dark.

_Don't stick around to help or anything_, Bonnie thinks bitterly. Not that Rebekah would have been helpful against a witch. If Bonnie could dispatch her easily, this one could, too. At least Rebekah escaped with the cure.

The witch is unconcerned with Rebekah's departure. If she was Bonnie could have used the distraction to kill her. She'll have to find another way. "Don't be stupid, Bonnie," the witch says as if she hears her thinking. Maybe she does. "You don't want your friend to die. Or the others, the vampire and the hybrid. They're on their way here, but we can make sure they don't make it."

"Who are you?" Bonnie questions. "How do you know us?"

"I only know you," the witch says, fixing her large, brown eyes on Bonnie. "I know all about you. So I know about your friends."

"If anything happens here that I don't _want_ to happen, you will leave this island with the corpses of your loved ones," the witch says. "And that cure won't make it off this island. Understand?"

Bonnie nods.

"Don't test me," she says. "That witch you killed was a dear friend of mine."

"I said I understood," Bonnie snaps.

"Good," the witch says, her lips curving upward into a smile. "My name is Aja." She looks down at Silas with something akin to affection, running a gentle hand along his arm. When she takes her hand away, she curls her fingers into a fist.

"Are you one of his...followers?" Bonnie asks. She remembers Shane mentioning them once. 

"I believe in Silas," Aja says. "I believe in what he can do." She smiles and nods to his body, lightly touching the mask on his face. "Only a Bennett witch can awaken him."

"I don't know how."

Aja takes hold of Bonnie's hand, interlacing their fingers. Hers are cool and dry. "I'll show you." Bonnie's eyes flit to Jeremy, unmoving and vulnerable. She sees his chest rising and falling and remembers the feel of Jeremy's chest beneath her hands. If she focuses on that now, she'll be able to think of a way out of this.

But Jeremy lets out a choking breath. His body seizes.

Bonnie turns her gaze back to Aja. "You said you wouldn't hurt him."

"I won't," Aja says. "But I need your full attention. You're about to do something great."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing. **


	27. Days Gone By

Days Gone By

**Day 1**

"They have to be down there," Tyler says when he and Elena reach a yawning, dark hole. He can't hear anything down there, but this is where Bonnie's fire led them.

"Then let's go," Elena says before dropping out of sight. Her hair seems to blend in with the dark as she's swallowed up by it. Tyler hears her hit the ground and follows after her. He drops down beside her, where she's shining her flashlight down a long tunnel with an uneven circle as its entrance. All around them is broken stone, cracked into pieces. They speed down the passage together, listening for any hint of Bonnie, Jeremy or Shane.

Tyler sees them first.

Jeremy and Bonnie on the ground with several feet separating them. Bonnie lies at the foot of a giant stone slab. Elena's at Jeremy's side and Tyler goes to Bonnie's to touch her cheek, tilting her head toward him. He can't smell blood anywhere and he examines her intently, looking for any signs of injury. She's fine. He even runs his fingers through her hair, feeling her head for any bumps. Nothing.

"Bonnie? Bonnie, wake up." She doesn't stir, but he can hear her heart beating. It's steady. She's alive. She's definitely alive. So why won't she wake up? "_Bonnie_."

"Is she okay?" Elena says.

"She's alive," Tyler says, "but I can't wake her up. Jeremy?" He's lying so still.

Elena nods. "He's alive." On cue Jeremy groans and relief floods Tyler's chest as Elena helps Jeremy sit up. "Give Bonnie your blood," she says. "Maybe it'll help."

Tyler takes a bite of his wrist, sees the blood bubble to the surface of his skin. Her heartbeat is strong, she's in no danger of dying. So what's keeping her asleep? He puts his wrist to her mouth and mentally urges her to swallow. "Come on, Bonnie." She doesn't respond. "We have to get out of here," he says. He can't think with this suffocating darkness around them, where he can't be sure what's in it, while Bonnie is like this.

"Where's Shane?" Elena's helping Jeremy stand.

"He's out there," Jeremy says. "We left him. Bonnie broke his legs."

"He wasn't there," Elena tells him. "What happened?"

"Rebekah showed up," Jeremy begins, "and she had the cure. Then another witch came. She stopped Rebekah. She was choking me."

"Rebekah was?"

"The witch," Jeremy says. "I think she knocked me out or something. I don't remember, but they're both gone. The cure..."

"We have to go," Tyler repeats. "The cure's not here. We have to get Bonnie home. We'll figure this out there." He lifts her and her head rests against his chest. The movement should have jostled her. It didn't, and Tyler's chest feels tight. They need to go home.

"What about Rebekah?" Elena asks.

"If she has the cure she's long gone already," Tyler says impatiently. "If she doesn't, the witch has probably done something to her, and I doubt they stuck around either. We have to get Bonnie back."

Jeremy and Elena nod their agreement, but Jeremy pauses, his eyes narrowing. "Wait."

"What?" Elena says. "Do you remember something?"

"No," he answers, "but he's gone."

"Who?" Tyler questions. He's at the entrance, ready to go.

"Silas," Jeremy says, lurching forward to touch the top of the slab, running his hands over it as if touching it will make something appear on top of it. "He was _right _here. Rebekah had to break his hand to get the cure. _Shit_."

Tyler meets Elena's eyes. They all know what this means. Silas is awake.

* * *

It took an incredible amount of compulsion to get them back home. Tyler maxed out his credit card paying for a private plane to get them back and had to take out a hefty sum from an ATM to pay the pilot not to question why they were traveling with an unconscious girl. But once they're home it doesn't matter. Jeremy and Elena follow him up the path to Bonnie's front door. It opens before they reach it, and Abby steps onto the porch.

They all stop short. Abby stares down at Bonnie, opening her mouth, but nothing comes out.

"She told you to leave," Tyler says, like it's the only thing he can think of to say. Maybe it is.

"I didn't," Abby says. "What happened?"

"She's alive," Tyler says, carrying Bonnie past. He takes her straight up to her room and the rest of them follow because there's nothing else for them to do. "We don't know what happened to get her like this though." He lies her down on the bed and brushes her hair away from her face.

The entire trip home Jeremy kept waiting for her to wake up, for her eyes to open, and her to look at them and smile. Or maybe she wouldn't be smiling. Silas _is_ up and about now. That's not something to smile about. But Bonnie never moved, never did anything. Now, she still does nothing even as Abby sits next to her, touching her gently with her eyebrows furrowed. She opens one of Bonnie's eyes and makes a quiet humming sound.

"She's in a trance," she says.

"A what?" Jeremy says. "What does that mean?"

"She's sleeping," Abby says. "Her magic did this."

"Can you get her out of it?" Elena asks, hovering at the door like she's afraid to come in.

Abby shakes her head glumly. " She has to come out of it on her own. I've seen this a couple times before. Her magic has created a safe space for her to go. It usually happens after difficult spells. It's her magic's way of replenishing itself, protecting her. It'll take her awhile to wake up."

"How long is awhile?" Jeremy asks.

"The longest I've seen is three days."

"Three days?"

"The shortest was twenty-four hours," Abby adds. "Let's hope for that one." She pushes back her shoulders as she reaches for Bonnie's hand. "Her body's in stasis, as if she's outside of time or space or anything else. She's going to sleep like this, and nothing about her will change."

"But she _will_ wake up?" Tyler says.

"Eventually," Abby says. "A trance is good. It means she's not dead, and she's not dying. She's healing." She turns her head to look at them, an energy in her gaze that wasn't there before. "Did you get the cure?"

Jeremy doesn't say anything, but he drops his gaze to the floor. He doesn't know how to explain it. They didn't get it? They had it and they lost it? They had it, they lost it, and they didn't even know for sure _who_ they lost it to?

"No," Elena says finally. "Rebekah may have it. Or the witch."

"What witch?" Abby says, releasing Bonnie's hand as she rises to her feet.

"There was a witch," Jeremy says.

"I heard that part," Abby says tersely. "Who was she?"

"We don't know," Tyler says.

"What did she want?"

"We don't know," Jeremy says, "but...Silas is awake now."

Abby sighs deeply and shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I told you not to go. I told you it wasn't safe." She looks to Tyler now, as if she's scolding him. "I need to know what the witch did, if she's the reason Bonnie's like this."

"How do we find that out?" Elena asks. She holds herself together in a crisis. They've gotten good at that recently. There's no point in breaking down about this yet, not until they know there's no fixing it. And they don't know that yet.

"You can't do anything," Abby says. "I can't either. We need a witch. I'll call Lucy."

* * *

Abby doesn't go into details about what Lucy may be able to do. Maybe she doesn't think they'll be able to understand anyway. When she goes downstairs, Elena follows soon after to call Caroline and Matt. Jeremy and Tyler are left alone with Bonnie. She doesn't look like herself. She's in her room, on her bed, but she doesn't look like she's really there. Tyler drags her desk chair to the bedside and sits. "You think Shane put this whole thing together?"

"He brought one witch with him," Jeremy says. "Maybe he brought the other one, too."

"Another witch?"

"Bonnie killed him," Jeremy explains. "I didn't see his body outside the tunnel. They must have taken it. Where do you think Rebekah is?"

"I don't know," Tyler sighs. He wonders if they'll be expected to explain her absence to Klaus. He really hopes not. "If she still wants to cure Klaus she's going to have to show up eventually. Do you think _she_ knows what happened to Bonnie?"

"If she got away," Jeremy says. "I don't know how she would have. She was choking on blood the last time I saw her. But if the witch doesn't have the cure, Rebekah must have it," Jeremy says. "So she'll have to come back to use it."

"But if the witch has it, Silas has it," Tyler points out.

"If Silas has it, we're not getting it back."

Why would he give them the one thing that could take away his immortality? At least with Rebekah they know they'll benefit from what she does with the cure. Silas will sooner destroy it than let them have it. Tyler turns back to Bonnie and reaches for her hand. When he's touched her before, she's always responded. Her fingers have always closed, almost instinctively, around his. She always touches him back.

This time she doesn't.

"I'm trying to remember anything," Jeremy says. "It's just...I was out of it."

"It's not your fault," Tyler says, leaning back in the chair. "It just sucks that's all. But when she wakes up she can tell us what happened."

* * *

Jeremy knows when Caroline's arrived. Her voice carries up the stairs, demanding to know where Bonnie is before she's in the bedroom doorway, seeing for herself. She stops short, taking in a quiet breath. "Are you sure she's okay?" she asks. Jeremy's not sure who she's talking to until Abby steps into the room behind her.

"In a sense, yes," Abby answers. "Her magic has drawn her inward for the time being, and physically I can't find anything wrong with her. She'll wake up eventually."

"_Eventually_?" Caroline says, wheeling around. "So you don't know when?"

"Eventually," Abby repeats. "We have to be patient."

Abby may as well have asked Caroline to be a different person. Exhaling, Caroline approaches Bonnie's bedside and reaches out to brush her hair away from her closed eyes. "I don't understand. This was supposed to be...I don't know. We have to go to prom."

"She'll wake up before prom," Jeremy says, glancing to Abby. "Right?"

Abby doesn't answer. Maybe she just doesn't want to have to say "eventually" again.

"We should put her in more comfortable clothes," Caroline says. Jeremy doubts Bonnie's aware of any comfort or discomfort right now, but he agrees anyway. "I'll do it," Caroline says quickly as she pulls some of Bonnie's pajamas from her dresser, looking at them both pointedly. They need to leave.

Jeremy almost says that he's already seen Bonnie naked plenty of times, but he holds his tongue. Abby probably wouldn't appreciate that. And even though she's Bonnie's mom, she leaves with Jeremy and they close the door behind them.

Downstairs Tyler is punching buttons on his cell phone.

"Who are you calling?" Jeremy asks.

"Rebekah," he answers. "I found Shane's number in Bonnie's phone, too. He's not answering."

"No surprise there," Elena says resentfully.

"What does it mean?" Tyler asks, dropping his phone on the table and looking to Abby. "If she stays asleep for longer than three days or whatever?"

"It means her magic was seriously compromised," Abby says. "It has to regenerate. When Lucy gets here, we may be able to figure out exactly what happened."

Someone knocks on the door. "That's Matt," Elena says.

* * *

**Day 2**

It's the middle of the night, but none of them are sleeping. Elena and Caroline are at the kitchen table, neither of them talking. Tyler and Matt are sitting in front of the TV even though it's not on. Jeremy is in the chair, feet on the table. They get up in shifts to check on Bonnie. Tyler gets fifteen minutes before he comes back to say there's no change, Matt does the same. Caroline and Elena go together and always return looking a little sadder than they did when they went up. Jeremy goes after them and runs a hand along Bonnie's cheek, imagining his touch will rouse her. It never does. When Abby goes up, she stays the longest which Jeremy suspects is why they all keep it so short.

Lucy arrives in the middle of a downpour. Jeremy didn't even realize it was raining until Abby answers the door and the sound of the storm seems to fill the whole house. They're all suddenly energized waiting to see what she'll do - what she can do. In Bonnie's room, Lucy clasps her hand and rests another on Bonnie's forehead. She closes her eyes and murmurs a spell. It seems to take forever. She sits there, whispering over Bonnie's sleeping form. When she opens her eyes, she looks disheartened.

"Well?" Elena speaks before Tyler has the chance to. A pale faced Caroline stands next to her, chewing on her nail.

"She's definitely in a trance," Lucy says.

"Can you tell what made her that way?" Abby asks.

"Her magic was taken."

"She doesn't have her powers anymore?" Caroline asks. "She's so gonna freak."

The last time Bonnie lost her powers, when Jonas took them from her, she was devastated. This will be more of the same, maybe worse.

"She still has her magic," Lucy assures them, "but it's been...it's hard to explain. When she uses her magic, it taxes her body. Too much, too fast and she can hurt herself. It's like that. Except think Bonnie's magic may have been siphoned from her."

"For someone else to use," Abby says, nodding her head like that's what she expected to hear.

"You can do that?" Jeremy asks.

"You said Silas was gone," Lucy says, looking to Bonnie again. She smiles down at the floral print of Bonnie's pajamas. "Qetsiyah had him on serious lockdown."

"Only a Bennett witch could wake him," Jeremy remembers.

"Only a Bennett witch's magic," Lucy corrects. "He used hers. Like a jumpstart. Now she has to get herself together, and we just have to wait."

"There's nothing you can do?"

"I can try something," Lucy says, "but I don't know how much help it'll be. Depending on how much he took out of her, this may not do anything but shave off a few hours. If she can channel me, it may help. Give me a minute."

It takes them a moment to realize she's asking them to go. Only Abby stays behind while the rest of them go back downstairs.

"We have to go to school," Matt reminds them. "If Bonnie stays out for as long as they think-"

"She's not gonna graduate," Elena finishes.

"She'll graduate," Caroline says certainly. "We can compel all the teachers, tell them Bonnie's really sick and really contagious so she's going to have to do all her work from home."

"But she's not going to do her work," Jeremy points out.

"We'll compel them to think she is," Caroline says, shrugging her shoulders. "Problem solved."

Jeremy looks to Tyler. He isn't saying anything. He doesn't even seem to be down there with them. Staring up the stairs, he's still up in Bonnie's room.

* * *

**Day 3**

As promised, Caroline and Tyler did all the compelling necessary to explain away Bonnie's absence. Throughout the day they exchange texts with Abby and Lucy, checking in on Bonnie whenever they can. There's never any change. After school they head back right away only to watch Bonnie sleep. Tyler stares at her face, mapping it out, hoping to see even the slightest change. There's nothing. She doesn't even seem to move, not even a little, not even some random, involuntary twitch. Sometimes he imagines one. He tricks himself into thinking her eye twitched or she wiggled her nose or something.

"I didn't see Rebekah at school," Jeremy says.

"Rebekah's never at school," Tyler reminds him.

Still they look for her. They check the Grill, the shops in the square, they even swing by the Mikaelson manor when Klaus is gone. She's nowhere to be found. Maybe she hasn't found a way off the island yet. Or maybe Silas and the witch grabbed her. No matter how many times Tyler calls her phone, she doesn't pick up.

Caroline comes over with food from the Grill, giant bags filled with a multitude of plastic containers. "We have to eat," she says. She brings flashcards and notebooks and homework and they try to work while they wait.

Lucy and Abby go in and out of Bonnie's room. Lucy tries the channeling thing again, but she doesn't think it's doing anything. "She's not pulling much from me," she says. "I don't think it's enough."

Tyler tells himself not to worry yet. It hasn't been three days.

Then it _is_ the three days. 72 hours since they found Bonnie in the tomb. There's been no change.

"It's been three days," Jeremy says, joining Tyler on the back porch. He's come out to get away from the others. Bonnie's house has never been so full. There's nowhere to sit, nowhere where other people aren't. He could go somewhere else, sit in the park maybe, but he doesn't want to be too far away from Bonnie, just in case she wakes up and needs him. "_Exactly_ three days."

"I know," Tyler says. He's got a calendar. He's got a watch. He's also got a brain. He knows _exactly_ how long it's been.

"Should we call her dad?" Jeremy asks. "Tell him what happened?"

"I don't know," Tyler says, looking out at the garden. It's beginning to bloom. Bonnie wouldn't want them to call her dad. She didn't even want Abby here. If she knew Lucy was around she'd be shoving her out of town with both hands. But maybe he should be here? "I don't know," Tyler repeats. "Should we?"

"I don't know. I asked Abby," Jeremy says as he sits at Tyler's side on the step. "She said she didn't know either. I don't think she thinks he'll be happy she's here."

"I don't know," Tyler says again. "Maybe we let her decide?"

"I guess."

They sit there for awhile and they're both quiet. It's nice. Inside everyone's whispering. They're moving around. Caroline's flipping pages in one of her notebooks, Elena's reading to herself, talking quietly to herself, Lucy and Abby stir tea and talk in the corner, and Matt scribbles in the margins of one of his notebooks.

It's just too loud. Out here there's nothing but Jeremy's breathing.

"I'm gonna go check on her," Tyler says finally.

As before, nothing has changed. He still sits and reaches for her hands. They're warm. Warmth is good. Warmth means she's alive. He has to keep reminding himself she's alive when it looks like she's not.

"Do you want us to call your dad?" he asks. "What's the protocol for this kind of thing? I mean if it was my kid, I'd want to know if they were in some kind of magically induced coma, but we can wait awhile longer, I guess. I don't want to freak him out for no reason, you know? And you're gonna wake up soon so what's the point, right?"

Bonnie _will_ wake up soon. It's been three days, but that just means that she's even closer to waking up than she was before.

"I love you," he says, "and when you wake up, me and Jeremy will be here. And we'll figure out this thing. Okay? I keep thinking maybe me and Jeremy should start working on that, but I don't even know where to start. It doesn't feel right without you." He runs his fingers along her wrist, feels the steady thumping of her pulse.

It's then he notices something is missing.

He leans to check her other arm.

It's not there either.

"What are you doing?" Elena asks from the door, raising an eyebrow at him. They haven't spoken much since they got back on the island. Now they have other people friends to speak to so they don't need each other, and yelling at one another in Bonnie's living room would be frowned upon with all this going on.

"Her bracelet's gone," Tyler says.

"What bracelet?"

"Jeremy gave it to her," he explains. "Silver, says Bennett all over it. You know which one I'm talking about?"

Elena nods and steps closer. "Yeah, I've seen it. Are you sure it's gone?"

"She's not wearing it."

"Maybe she took it off before we went to the island?"

Tyler shakes his head. "I remember her wearing it. She had it on. She hasn't taken it off since Jeremy gave it to her."

"Maybe she just lost it there?"

It all sounds very logical. They were on an island dealing with witches and immortal witches and the forest. Misplacing a bracelet would be easy. But no.

"You think Silas took it?" Elena says. She seems to be talking to herself more than to him. "Why would he do that?"

* * *

"We have to get it back," Abby says as soon as Tyler tells her about the bracelet. "He'll use it to channel her."

"How do we know she's not doing that right now?" Elena asks. "Is that why she's still asleep?"

"No," Lucy says. "Her magic can't be touched while she's in the trance. It can't be brought outward. I can try to give her some of mine, but that's all that can happen. For now she's fine."

"So she's safer staying asleep?" Tyler says, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

"Yes," Lucy says.

The last thing he wants to do is hope Bonnie stays that way, but if Silas can channel her magic, maybe that's the best thing. But if she was awake they could figure out a way to stop him. With Bonnie awake, they could do _something_.

"How do we find him?" Jeremy asks, looking to Lucy hopefully.

"I don't know," she says. "He's a witch. Witches know how to hide. I'll figure something out."

* * *

**Day 4**

* * *

**Day 5**

* * *

**Day 6**

Lucy hasn't figured anything out. She and Abby try to figure something. They sit at the kitchen table together with Lucy muttering spells and Abby watching intently. It's been two days of it and they accomplish nothing. Even if they find Silas, are they going to be able to just politely ask for Bonnie's bracelet back? Probably not. It'll mean a fight, and Tyler's not sure it's one they can win.

He can hear Elena and Caroline upstairs. Whenever they go up to sit with Bonnie, Caroline does all the talking. Elena barely speaks, not that Caroline would allow her to. She's too busy telling Bonnie about Maddie Fell and her stupid prom ideas. She tells Bonnie about her dress, the decorations, the after party. It's all going to be very spectacular. She mentions asking Tyler if they can use his house for the party. He'll let her. He doesn't care. As long as Bonnie's awake for it, he doesn't care what they do.

When Caroline leaves to meet her mom Elena stays behind. She and Jeremy go home and come back every day, and Tyler has to keep reminding himself that Jeremy doesn't live there anymore. It's a good thing, too, with Lucy and Abby both there. Tyler's been considering going back to his house as well, if only while they're in town. He feels like he's intruding on something without Bonnie there to validate his presence, to explain why he's lingering. Lucy tries to make him comfortable. She jokes with him about him and Bonnie and laughs because Abby told her about them sleeping together the other night, but it's not as funny as it was before, when Bonnie was there with them and she was rolling her eyes at them both.

"She'll be okay, kid," Lucy says. "It's just a witch thing."

"It's just taking a lot longer than I thought it would."

"Me, too," she admits, "but she'll be awake soon. Then me and Abby will get out of your hair, and you two can go back to canoodling."

"You're not gonna stay? Graduation's coming up."

"I'll come back for it," Lucy says, "but we both know Bonnie's not gonna let me or Abby stick around. She's like that, likes to do everything herself." She smiles a little, but then the smile fades. "But Silas is big and _very_ bad. You may need some help."

Whatever Silas and the witch did to Bonnie in the tomb left her like she is now, and Bonnie is stronger than either Tyler or Jeremy. She's the witch, Tyler's the hybrid, and Jeremy's the hunter. They're all capable, all strong, but Bonnie is the strongest. If Silas can do this to her, what can he do to the rest of them?

"We might," Tyler agrees.

* * *

**Day 7**

Jeremy finds Elena in Bonnie's room. She sits on the bed at Bonnie's side, holding Bonnie's hand. He realizes she's crying just as he's stepped inside, and by then she's already trying to hide it. She wipes her face and is speeding past him before he can say a word.

He doesn't go after her. She doesn't want to talk about it. Instead he sits down in the designated Visiting With Bonnie Chair. Caroline's changed Bonnie's pajamas since last time. Now they are a pale blue, not that Bonnie knows the difference.

"I'm kinda jealous," he says, "that you get to miss all this school. School sucks. I mean, it didn't suck so bad when you were there, but now...I don't know what I'll do when you and Tyler leave for college. That's _really_ gonna suck. This sucks, too. I don't think I've gone this long without hearing your voice since Denver. And it's even weirder because you're right here, but you just can't talk to me.

"I miss you," he adds. "Don't worry about the bracelet. We'll get it back from Silas. Don't worry about anything, just get better. Your mom's still here. She's really worried, I think. She doesn'ttell _us_ that, but she definitely is. You've been asleep longer than any of us thought you would be." He rests his elbows on the edge of the bed to look at her closely.

"Sleeping Bonnie," he whispers. That's one of the stories he remembers. It used to be Elena's favorite. He can't remember exactly how many times he was forced to sit through that cartoon, but he knows he hated it. He hates this, too.

He wonders if Bonnie is dreaming.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm sorry this is late but I'm in the middle of finals so things are going to be a little tight until I get everything settled and I'm back home and finished with this semester.**


	28. Sleeping Bonnie

Sleeping Bonnie

There's someone crying, but Bonnie can't find them. She walks through the woods, hiking up the skirt of her prom dress. She shouldn't be walking through the woods in this dress. That's not what it's for. This dress, grazing the ground and the color of crushed rose petals, should be seeing the inside of the prom venue, not the dark and dirty surroundings of the forest. But she searches for the crying person all the same. It sounds like Elena, but Bonnie can't be sure. She seems to be crying from all directions, and Bonnie can't pick out which way to go.

"Bonnie."

Bonnie wheels around, and she's not in her prom dress anymore but in jeans and a plain gray t-shirt, staring at Sheila Bennett. She looks so...the same. She's wearing the same long sweater she died in, the one that has been imprinted on Bonnie's brain since she found her body, and she stands straight backed and serene.

"Grams," Bonnie says. "Hi."

She's looking at her so strangely, Bonnie thinks she may be angry. She remembers the torture Bonnie saw her under the last time they saw one another.

"I'm so sorry," Bonnie says. "I-"

Sheila takes a step forward and she smiles her same contained smile, the one she only ever had for Bonnie. Bonnie feels her whole body relax. "You're okay," she says.

"Yes," Sheila says with nod. "I'm fine."

"Am _I_ fine?" Bonnie asks, looking around them.

"You're taking care of yourself," Sheila says.

"Where are we?"

"Your head," Sheila says. "Your magic."

"My magic?"

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

Bonnie nods. "Something great," she says, remembering Aja's words, her hands in Bonnie's own. "Something terrible."

* * *

Aja touches Silas' broken hand delicately and places Bonnie's hand into it. His fingers are stony and the broken bones beneath the skin feel like uneven pebbles. She's struck by the desire to douse her hand in alcohol, as if something gross is rubbing off and will infect her.

"What's your name?" Aja asks.

"You know-"

Aja pulls at Jeremy again. "I can sever his finger from over here," she says. "That ring won't help him. What's your name?"

"Bonnie," she says through gritted teeth.

"Bonnie what?"

"Bonnie Bennett."

Silas' fingers grip hers. Broken or not the grip is certain and bruising. This was how he held the cure, wrapped in his hold like this, so tight it could have crushed that vial into pieces. Bonnie's knees knock together and she grips the side of the slab for the support.

"What is your name?" Aja asks again.

Bonnie swallows down a cry of pain. She's not going to scream where this woman can hear her.

"Bonnie Bennett."

* * *

"He took my magic," Bonnie says, remembering. "I couldn't stop him. He just...took it."

"It'll be back," Sheila says. "Then what happened?"

* * *

Aja stands over her, looking down at Bonnie with a blank expression. When she looks away, it's to Silas. Bonnie tries to keep her eyes on them, on Silas slowly moving body, his bones unfolding and expanding and creaking with the strain. It's been so long he might as well have been stone himself.

Aja helps him, offering her hands to him. He's huge, bigger than he seemed on the table, his shoulders are broad and from down here, he looks like he could be over seven feet tall. Bonnie may just be delirious. She turns her head to Jeremy who she tries to reach for with her magic. She needs to feel his heart beating, know that he's safe, that this was not for nothing. She can't. Her magic doesn't obey. It's as if there's nothing there to reach with anyway.

Fear lodges itself in Bonnie's throat, in her chest, burrowing into a hole. If she doesn't have her magic, they are defenseless. _She_ is defenseless.

She sees the shadow fall over her face, but doesn't turn her head. A hand, surprisingly gentle touches her chin and turns her face. She's staring up into the stone mask. It's too dark to see into the slits where the eyes should be, and Bonnie suspects she wouldn't want to see them anyway.

"Thank you, Bonnie," Silas says. His hand falls from her chin, and his fingers trail along her arm. She feels goosebumps arise on her skin and the tremble of her own fingers.

Silas makes a _ssshing_ sound.

"We'll meet again," Silas assures her. His hand works at her wrist and she feels something being removed. When she allows her gaze to drop, she sees him enfolding her bracelet into his hand. Jeremy gave her that. She wants to make him give it back, wants to break his spine as she'd done with Kol and Klaus and Elijah. Even if she could, it wouldn't matter. Silas would heal, and not even a stake to the heart would relieve her of him.

Aja and Silas start walking. They move past Jeremy without giving him a second glance, and when Silas' shape has blended into the dark of the tunnel, Bonnie's feels her eyes drooping. She tries to keep them open. She needs to stay awake.

She can't.

* * *

Bonnie looks down at her wrist, sees her Bennett bracelet there. It flickers in and out of sight, again and again. She touches it and when her fingers wrap around it, it becomes solid on her wrist. The name seems to glow. Then it disappears right from under her hand, and she stares at the space it once occupied, remembering the hands that stole it from her.

"He's awake now," Sheila says.

"I had to," Bonnie says, massaging her wrist. "She could have killed Jeremy."

"Even so," Sheila says. "Silas will be a problem."

Bonnie nods down at her naked wrist. "I'll fix it."

Whatever Silas will do, whatever his plans are, Jeremy being alive is enough reason to have to go through them. She will take whatever consequences they have to deal with, she'll put Silas back in that tomb if she must, as long as it means Jeremy's alive and safe.

"I shouldn't have agreed to work with her on this," Caroline says matter-of-factly. "Collaboration is for the creatively challenged. This prom is going to _suck_ if Maddie has her way."

Bonnie's head snaps up, searching for Caroline. Sheila still stands in front of her, watching her as she makes a circle, looking for a flash of Caroline's blond hair. She sounds like Elena's crying did, cavernous and loud, pressing in from all directions. But she is nowhere in sight.

"What's going on?" Bonnie asks.

"Never did know how to utilize her inside voice."

Sheila has disappeared. In her place stands Damon Salvatore, his hands hanging at his sides. He wears one of his usual leather jackets, dark jeans, dark shirt. The smirk on his face angers her just as much as it did back in the real world, when he was alive. That seems like an alternate universe now.

"Still, you're going to look so hot," Caroline's voice says. "We can all get ready at my house."

Her voice shakes the sky, makes Damon look upward and sigh deeply. When he lowers his eyes to Bonnie again, he makes a _humph_ sound. "Nice dress."

She's wearing her prom dress again, but Bonnie doesn't have time to think about that. "Didn't I kill you?"

"You did," Damon assures her. "But you're the one who brought me here, Bonnie," he says. "You've been thinking about me."

"Except I haven't." When was the last time she thought of Damon as more than a victim of hers, Tyler's and Jeremy's? When was the last time she _really_ thought of him?

Damon shrugs his shoulders. "Well, I'm here either way."

"For what?"

"To say hello," Damon says, taking a step toward her.

This is her dream, her..whatever this is. Damon has no power here. Bonnie doesn't even know if _she_ has power here. She decides to test that out, conjuring a flame that ignites along the sleeve of Damon's jacket unable to stop the satisfied smile that appears on her face. He looks down at his sleeve coolly.

"I was feeling a little cold," he says. He lets it burn without trying to put it out.

"Where's your brother?" Bonnie asks, her eyes scanning the forest for any signs of the other Salvatore.

"Don't know if he got the same call I did," Damon says. "Maybe you just wanted to see the _better_ brother."

"That's unlikely," Bonnie says.

"We have business."

"You're dead," Bonnie snaps. "Our business has been taken care of. Go away."

Damon's smirk returns. But he, thankfully, disappears.

The crying returns, and when Bonnie turns around she can actually see Elena this time. She's sitting down, but floating in midair, her seat invisible to Bonnie's eyes. Elena's fingers are folded around something else Bonnie can't see, but she thinks she feels light pressure on her fingers.

"Elena," Bonnie says, stepping toward her. "What's wrong?"

When Elena looks up Bonnie thinks she may have heard her, but then Elena is sweeping away. The pressure at Bonnie's fingers disappears and Elena fades from sight, taking her crying with her.

"Bonnie."

Bonnie turns to see Sheila. "Where did you go?" Bonnie asks.

"You sent me away," Sheila says.

"No, I didn't," Bonnie says. "I wouldn't. Especially not to replace you with _Damon_."

Sheila smiles. "You needed to see him."

"Why?"

Sheila lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "That's the thing about magic. It knows things you don't, shows you things you don't know you need to see."

"I need to see Elena?"

"You need to see lots of things," Sheila says.

"Can I start seeing things that make sense?" Bonnie asks which earns her a laugh. "Why's Elena crying?"

"She's sad."

"Well, yeah," Bonnie says, "about what?"

Sheila only smiles.

"Did Rebekah get away?" Bonnie asks. "With the cure? Do you know? Does my magic know?"

Sheila nods. "She escaped with the cure, yes."

"Where is she now?"

"That is the right question."

Bonnie lifts an eyebrow. "Can I get a right answer?"

"We don't know the answer."

Bonnie sighs heavily. "I need the cure." She needs it for Klaus, she needs it for Silas. If she needs it for Silas, she can't use it on Klaus. She needs it.

Sheila nods her head slowly. "I know you believe that."

* * *

Bonnie's walking through the school. How she got here, she doesn't know. When she started walking is another mystery. When she got out of her prom dress and back into her jeans, a question she doesn't even feel like asking. The school is empty and somehow every classroom door seems to lead outside. She can see the grass, the parking lot, the football field. Nothing leads to a room. When she turns her eyes forward, she's looking at Jeremy, leaning against the line of lockers.

"You _are_ dreaming," he says. "Good. This would have been really boring if you weren't."

"You're okay," Bonnie breathes. His eyes are shining and he looks to be in perfect condition. His tattoo crawls up and down both arms, looking darker, oilier in the shining lights of the hallway.

"I'm okay," Jeremy repeats shooting her a smile. "So are you. Or, you will be."

"I will be," she promises.

"You will be," Jeremy says again.

Bonnie flings her arms around his neck, breathing him in. This isn't _her_ Jeremy, not her solid, real-life Jeremy, but he's still good. He's warm, and he feels like Jeremy. She kisses him hard, looking for more proof that her magic can conjure up.

"I really am okay," Jeremy says when he separates his lips from hers. "I'm here with you."

There's chanting, a spell, softly murmured. It sounds like Lucy, but Bonnie doesn't know why she'd be hearing her. The lockers rattle, but Jeremy isn't bothered. He's throwing his ring in the air. It catches the light, shining and splendid, and falls back into his palm. Then he sends it up again. She remembers the tomb, its suffocating darkness. She's back there again, but she's still in the hallway, too. The ring is the only color there, and all she can think about is Jeremy's fragile body and breakable bones and spillable blood.

"Jeremy, put your ring on," she says.

He catches it and turns his head to look at her. He smiles as if she's the most adorable thing in the whole world and all of her concern is unfounded. Closing his fist around the ring, he touches her face with her other hand. "I'm okay," he says. "I'm fine. We're both fine. Okay?"

"Please," Bonnie says. "Put it back on."

Jeremy heaves a heavy, exaggerated sigh as he slides the ring back onto his finger. He holds it up for her to see. "There you go."

"Thank you," she says, and Jeremy smiles.

The chanting returns. The lockers tremble again.

"What the hell is going on?" Bonnie demands, but Jeremy doesn't answer her. He's twisting his ring around his finger now, going slowly, staring at it as it revolves around his finger.

"Jeremy-"

"They're trying to make you better."

"And I thought Damon was bad," Bonnie says, as she turns around to look into Stefan's familiar smug face. He cocks his head to the side to look at her, his eyes sliding up and down her body. She feels a sharp pain in her neck and her hand leaps to her throat to feel. The skin is smooth and unbroken with no bite mark.

Stefan's gaze lingers on her hand where it remains on her neck. "Looking for something?" he asks.

"What do _you_ want?" Bonnie snaps, folding her arms across her chest.

"Nothing really," he says. "It's enough just to see you. I've _missed_ you, Bonnie."

"The feeling isn't mutual," Bonnie says.

Stefan's eyes still linger on her throat. "How's Elena?"

"Alive," Bonnie says. "I know you and Damon liked to think she'd die without you, but she's making do."

"How are _you _and Elena?"

"Don't know," Bonnie says.

Stefan smiles, and Bonnie can practically feel his satisfaction. Is this real? Is this Stefan the same Stefan that they killed at the boarding house? Is this him back from wherever it was that she and Tyler and Jeremy sent him? Or is this another Stefan? Is this a Stefan her magic made up, or is it _the_ Stefan? Or are they the same?

"Elena and I will see each other again," Stefan says certainly. He looks away from Bonnie's neck, off into the distance. Bonnie looks behind her, expecting to see Elena again, but there's nothing there but the empty hallway. Jeremy's still there, apparently unable to see Stefan. He's still fascinated by his ring.

"Hopefully you and I won't," Bonnie says as she turns back to face him which only makes Stefan's smile wider. "Careful, Bonnie. We aren't the only ones who are deserving." He moves toward her with one smooth step and looks down at her with calm indifference. "I hope you get your cure, Bonnie. You'll need it."

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Stefan turns on his heel and walks up the hallway.

"Jeremy, did you-" Bonnie begins.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Jeremy says from behind her.

"Isn't what-" Bonnie asks, spinning back around. As she moves the scenery changes, dissolving away to reveal a beach that stretches off on either side of them, the white of the sand seeming to glow even in the darkness of the sky, where stars wink from above them. The ocean is a mass of foamy waves that wrap around one another and smash together to create a symphony that sounds both far away and seems loud enough to make Bonnie's ears ring.

Maybe if she just stops turning around, the setting will remain the same and she won't be getting whiplash.

"Yeah," she says anyway, moving to Jeremy's side. "It is beautiful. Where are we?"

There are no landmarks, no identifiers. They could be anywhere.

"I can't wait for this," Jeremy says.

"For what?" Bonnie asks.

Jeremy doesn't answer. Instead he feels for her hand which he squeezes in his fingers. Bonnie doesn't know what makes her glance over her shoulder, but there are people standing behind them. None of them look at all familiar to her, but she tries to place their faces. She gives up. They extend for miles, further and further back. Even the beach seems to last forever. "Jeremy," she says. "Who are they?"

There's one standing at the front of the group with a mess of oily, black hair. He wears a long leather coat that is out of place on this beach, but he doesn't look at all uncomfortable. There's something in his hand, a chain that looks as if it belongs on a necklace. She can see the pendant as if she's standing right next to him: a pair of hands, palms up. He's saying something. She can see his lips moving, but nothing is coming out. Bonnie is about to step toward him, just to see if she can make it out when his eyes go dark and veins spread from beneath them.

There are way too many vampires cropping up in her head right now.

"Jeremy," she repeats, more urgently. "Who are they?"

Jeremy doesn't even have to look. "They're Kol's."

"What are they doing here?"

Jeremy doesn't answer, and Bonnie is both frustrated and unsurprised. She won't be getting any straight answers in here, inside her magic.

"We need the cure," he says instead.

"I know," Bonnie says, tearing her eyes away. God, does she know it. "I-"

Jeremy turns around. "Good thing we've got it."

"Rebekah took it," Bonnie reminds him.

"Yes," Jeremy says, "but we've got it."

Bonnie squints at him. "What do you mean?"

Jeremy smiles. "We've got it." Then he turns back to the water. "The tide's coming in."

That it is. The water reaches up to their ankles, their knees, their thighs.

Jeremy turns to look at her, leans to kiss her cheek. "Happy birthday, Bonnie."

"Thanks?"

Jeremy grins and turns to look back out at the water. Bonnie can't make herself move, and she doesn't really want to. She knows she'll drown if she stays here, unmoving, but when the water is at her mouth, covering her nose, she inhales.

It is air.

* * *

Bonnie is alone.

She's in her house. It's empty. She doesn't need to look to know that Jeremy is gone. Tyler is, too. Her dad isn't there. Abby isn't either. Sheila has been long gone.

She's alone. It's been so long since it's been that way.

Sitting at the kitchen table, she's scratching into the table's surface. Two circles. They are the same, but different though she can't point out what's so different about them or what makes them the same other than the fact that they are circles. She has to work to scratch small circles into them. Twelve for each one.

"I don't understand how this happened."

Bonnie has heard her father angry before. Many times, in fact. Frustrated, really. With her mom, with Grams, with magic itself. He is angry now, standing directly in front of Bonnie without looking at her. Someone else has his attention, but Bonnie doesn't know who.

"What were you _thinking_?"

She wonders who he's yelling at. Is it Tyler? Jeremy? Elena? If he's there, back where she is, does that mean he knows Tyler's been staying with her? That's a conversation she could wait a little longer to have.

Bonnie can't stop staring at him. She's never looked at him when he can't see her before. He begins to pace. When he stops it's because someone else has appeared, stepping closer to him.

Abby with her arms crossed and her voice lowered. "Let's finish this downstairs," she says, reaching out to hesitantly touch his shoulder. Bonnie can't remember the last time she saw her parents in a room together, the last time she saw them touching. It takes Bonnie a moment to remember that she told Abby she wanted her to leave. Now she doesn't care so much.

Rudy looks like all the energy has been drained from him, and he lets Abby guide him away, until they both disappear from sight. Bonnie looks to the stairs, as if they'll come walking down them at any moment. They don't.

"You're going to be fine," Sheila says. Bonnie isn't even surprised when she sits across from her at the table. The old woman examines the circles. She taps one of them with the tip of her finger. In the center appears the same pair of hands Bonnie saw on the beach, on the chain the vampire held.

"What does that mean?" Bonnie asks.

"Protecting hands."

"So it's a safe circle?"

Sheila shakes her head. "Neither circle is safe." She smiles at Bonnie's confused face. "It's almost time. We'll see each other again."

Bonnie reaches across the table and smiles when Sheila takes her hands.

* * *

When Bonnie opens her eyes she's vertical and staring up at her ceiling. It's her ceiling, but it's not. Her room is not as white as this one, which seems almost sterile in its shine, but it also seems to be overflowing with energy, quiet and contained. It's a happy energy. She likes it here. The window is open and overlooking an ocean, one that is right up against the glass, as if her room was built on top of the water. Is it the same one she was staring at with Jeremy?

She turns onto her side to look at it better. She thinks she can feel the spray of the water against her face, but that can't be possible. She doesn't startle as an arm slides over her waist and a body presses against her. The skin is cool and the weight against her is familiar.

"Tyler," she says without even needing to look. Her eyes close as he kisses her cheek, and his hand roams across the plane of her stomach, sliding lower so it can go underneath her shirt and rest on her bellybutton.

"Hmm?"

"Hi."

Tyler laughs in her ear. The sound is low and makes her stomach tie itself into a neat, pleasant knot. "Hi," he says. She turns over to face him, and she can't help smiling when she sees his face. The dark eyes, the full lips, the quiet smirk that teases at the corner of his mouth.

"I was wondering when I was gonna see you," she tells him.

"I didn't mean to keep you waiting," he says apologetically.

He's shirtless, and on his chest is a scar. She knows he doesn't have one, not outside of here, but now he does. It is in the exact spot where she had to replace his heart. Carefully she reaches out to touch it, feeling the raised skin against her fingers to make sure it's real. He stares at her fingers then rests his forehead against hers. Bonnie looks at his lips and thinks of running her tongue along the lower one.

Tyler touches her face, her forehead, lets his fingers drag down her cheek. As he traces the outline of her lips, he smiles.

"What?" she asks.

"You're the key to everything," he says.

Bonnie stares at him, waiting for him to go on. When he doesn't, she sighs. "I am, huh?"

"Yeah," he says. "That's hot."

They both laugh.

"If I'm so hot," she says, "why are you taking so long to kiss me?"

Tyler's smile widens. "I'm waiting."

"Why?"

He nuzzles the side of her neck, and one of his hand strokes her side. "To make sure you're ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To wake up," he says. He looks at her thoughtfully, examining her face. He takes her hand, intertwines their fingers. She finds herself staring at his bracelet as he speaks. "You are."

_Finally_, she thinks as he kisses her.

* * *

**Day 12**

Bonnie feels her body moving, her back slightly arched as if to lean into Tyler's kiss. He's not there. No one is. It's just her and her silly Spice Girls poster.

She's awake.

* * *

**So there are LOADS of little hints to where this whole thing is going scattered throughout this chapter. Try to figure them out or you can just wait until we get there and see how it all fits together. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	29. Needs

**A few people asked if I was going to keep writing this fic since TVD is so shitty, especially after the finale (which I didn't watch with the exception of the Beremy scenes) and the answer is yes. I'm finishing this up and I have plans on writing another fic, Tonnie based, afterward. Canon sucks, but that doesn't mean fanon has to. **

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Needs

Tyler opens the refrigerator door, eyes scanning the rows of empty shelves until he finds the blood bags he put there. That's all that's there. No food. He make a mental note to get on that in the morning. It's the same mental note he's been making since he got home, since Bonnie's dad got back into town and politely but sternly asked Tyler to leave.

Three days later there's still no food in the fridge, but he's getting used to waking up in his own bed again. He returns there after sitting in Bonnie's room for a few hours, watching her sleep after a long day at school where he and Caroline continue to compel away any questions about Bonnie's prolonged absence**. **Tyler sips the blood, thinking that he's probably going to have to start compelling decent grades for himself if he doesn't regain focus.

"You have a beautiful home."

Startled, Tyler drops the bloodbag on the floor where blood spurts to stain the tiles. When he spins around, he finds himself staring at Shane whose legs are working just fine.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Tyler demands. "Get out."

Shane shrugs his shoulders and does a loop around the kitchen, his mouth quirking upward into a smile when he sees Tyler's empty fridge. With a quiet thump, Tyler shuts the door. "Get out of my house," he hisses, "or I will take you apart."

Shane laughs outright. "I'd like to see you try, hybrid."

The last time Tyler's brain was exploding was in a bar full of similarly pained vampires, and it was Bonnie pressing the trigger. That made it okay. This is _not_ okay. He's on the floor, trying to see past the colored spots that burst in front of his eyes, clawing at the tiles for something, anything to grab hold of. He feels the bloodbag, feels the plastic tear beneath his fingers, spilling more blood along the floor.

When the pain finally stops, he raises his eyes. Shane's gone, and Klaus stands in his place.

"What are-"

"Allow me to introduce myself," Klaus says, crouching at Tyler's side. "My name is Silas."

Silas who looks like Klaus and Shane. He _is_ Klaus, down to the stupid smirk on his face.

"Why do you look like Klaus?" Tyler asks. "Why did you look like Shane?"

"Because I can," Silas says, "but I thought this visage would be more persuasive to you than that of the professor. I've seen inside your head, a very interesting place to be. You with your guilt and your morality and your rage."

"What do you want?" Tyler asks. He puts as much space between him and Silas as he can, pulling himself to his feet. Silas straightens as well, cocking his head to the side.

"It is truly amazing to me," Silas says, "that a witch of Bonnie Bennett's caliber chooses to surround herself with vermin like you. Vampires, hybrids." He makes a clucking sound with his tongue. "When you were a werewolf at least you could call yourself somewhat human. Now? Not so much."

"Hybrids and vampires were after your time," Tyler says. "What do you know about us?"

"Enough," Silas says, "You feed on blood and human life. You are a monster. I would enjoy nothing more than to crush you into fine pieces."

_Then why don't you_? Tyler thinks. "I didn't choose this. If I'm a monster then what are you?"

"A witch," Silas says. "As is Bonnie, hence my confusion. A witch, godlike in her power, in love with one of you. It's a real disappointment, but I've found that her questionable taste isn't uncommon." Tyler's about to ask what he means by that, but Silas doesn't let him get that far. "Her unfortunate affections may serve me well, however. She'll do what I need if you ask her."

"She woke you up. That wasn't enough?"

"That's witch business, hybrid," Silas says. "All you need to know is that I _need_ Bonnie."

"You're out of luck," Tyler says, "because I'm not going to ask her anything."

"Yes, you are," Silas says, "because I have something you need."

Tyler lifts his chin defiantly his chin defiantly. "Yeah? What?"

"The cure," Silas says.

"Rebekah has the cure."

"I have Rebekah," he says. "She handed the cure over with incredible willingness when I told her I could return her brothers to her. Finn and Kol. Both dead at the hands of your friends. Less than an hour ago, I put in her possession a coffin containing another brother. It was well hidden though not so well that I couldn't find it. Rebekah said that was part of her deal with Bonnie, but it seems that deal is now moot."

"Bonnie's not going to help you," Tyler repeats, "and I'm not going to tell her to."

"You will," Silas insists. "To kill Klaus you require the cure. And you, Tyler, _need_ to kill Klaus. He's destroyed your life, forced you to send your mother across the country." Tyler swallows a giant lump in his throat. He grips the counter's edge and feels small pieces crumble to the floor where they bounce across the tiles.

"Klaus stripped you of your free will," Silas continues, "and you had to put yourself through endless hours of agonizing transformations to be liberated. Then, just when you were beginning to feel like you had some power again, when you were the Alpha and your pack was happy and _free_, he murders them and leaves their bodies and their hearts for you to find." Silas ticks them off on his fingers. "Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. And last not but certainly not least, Kim."

Every time Tyler blinks, he sees them. Silas goes from Klaus to Bryant with his long, blond hair to Lana with her shining curls to Steven with his easy smile to Jack with his countless tattoos then Adrian with the flirtatious grin he'd throw out for anyone but especially Sabrina. Next Silas takes on Cora with her round face and dimpled cheeks, Sabrina and her piercing blue eyes, Chase and his shaved head, the incredibly tall Kevin with the multiple piercings, Casey and her perfectly manicured fingernails and constantly glossed lips, Hope with her slightly uneven bangs. And Kim, with her curls and familiar smirk.

"You _need_ to kill Klaus," Silas says, in Kim's voice, with Kim's face, "and I can give you the cure. In exchange, you get Bonnie to give me what _I_ want. Klaus killed you, too, Tyler. The only reason you're alive today is because she loves you, and she _does_ love you. She'd do anything for you."

Tyler fixes his stare on the floor, refusing to look at Kim now. She isn't in his kitchen, standing a few feet away from him. She's dead and buried at the edge of the property with the rest of the pack. She can't speak to him, can't look at him, can't stand with him. She's dead.

"You took her bracelet to channel her," Tyler says. "Why do you need her if you have it?"

"I need the real thing."

"She's still in her trance," Tyler says.

"Not anymore," Silas says.

It's been almost two weeks since Tyler last spoke to Bonnie. He looks up, hoping Silas will have changed faces, but he hasn't. He's still Kim. "When she comes to you," he says, "you tell her what I've told you. Remind her of your _need_. She must come to me for details, and she should make it soon. The full moon is in three days. I keep a tight schedule."

"What if we refuse?" Tyler says. "Then what?"

"Then I'll destroy the cure," he says. "Think about it like this, Tyler. You get the cure to kill Klaus, but you'll also get your pack. I'll gladly return them to you if you do this for me."

"So they can live again with you as their master? I don't think so," Tyler says. "They got free of their sirebonds. I'm not going to let you put them on your leash."

Silas shakes his head and Kim's hair brushes against her face as he laughs but it's Kim's laugh Tyler hears. All he wants to do is walk away, to get out of this kitchen, away from Silas and Kim's face and Kim's voice.

"I don't need to force anyone to do anything," Silas says. "I don't need mindless followers. My followers follow because they _believe_, because they are grateful. Your pack will be free to do whatever it is they want. Even follow you, their Alpha. Talk to Bonnie. Goodnight, Tyler."

Tyler leans against the counter as the man wearing Kim's face leaves the kitchen. When he hears the front door closing, he closes his eyes and tries to stop seeing them. Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. Kim.

* * *

Bonnie's never had this many people in her bedroom at once. Abby, Rudy and Lucy all look at her with matching expressions of concern even as she walks easily around her room, just fine.

"How long's it been?" she asks.

"Twelve days," Abby answers. "More or less."

Bonnie's eyes widen as she turns toward her mirror. "Long time." She meets her dad's gaze in the reflection. "Who were you yelling at? I heard you," she adds when he looks confusedly at her. "Who were you yelling at?"

Rudy puts his hands on his hips and sighs. "Your friends. Jeremy and Elena Gilbert. And your _roommate, _Tyler Lockwood."

"Why do you have to say their names like you've never met them before?" Bonnie says. "Where _is_ Tyler?" He's not in the house. If he was, he'd be here with the rest of them, and she can't sense him there either.

"I sent him home," Rudy says.

Bonnie wheels around. "You kicked him out?" She looks to Abby who instantly looks away then to Lucy who lifts her shoulders in a helpless shrug as she passes Bonnie a cup of tea. It smells delicious and the cup is warm against her fingers, but she refuses to drink it yet.

"I sent him home," Rudy repeats.

"You _kicked him out_."

"He shouldn't have been here in the first place," Rudy says. "When I leave I don't expect any boys to take up residence here. Especially not in your bedroom."

Bonnie looks purposefully to Abby. She almost tries to explain, but what would she say? It wasn't like that? It was. Instead she looks down at the brown liquid inside the cup and watches the steam as it rises up to her nose.

Rudy sighs heavily and perches beside her on the bed. "Tyler has a house," he says. "A very big one. He'll be fine. "

_He should be with me_, Bonnie thinks, remembering the emptiness of the house in her dream. Tyler and Jeremy, both gone.

"That's not what we're concerned with right now though," Abby says, moving forward but still keeping a decent amount of space between her and Rudy. Whatever tactility Bonnie had witnessed between them in her dream is gone. "We're worried about you."

"And Silas," Lucy adds.

"But mostly you," Rudy says. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," Bonnie says. She finally raises the tea to her lips, drinks it down. It's good to taste something, after days of not tasting anything. "I need to talk to Tyler and Jeremy. I have to tell them what happened."

"Tell _us_ what happened," Lucy says from the wall. "You'll see your boys, Bonnie. Just talk to me first. I can help you."

Bonnie turns the cup in her hands as she explains everything. Bonnie's name stirring Silas, his fingers like stone around her hand. She stares down at her wrist as she remembers Silas fingers gently taking the bracelet. "He'll channel me," she realizes. She won't even be able to do anything about it.

"We're working on a way to get it back," Lucy promises. "He couldn't channel you while you were asleep. If he thinks you're still under maybe he won't even try."

"But if he does," Bonnie says, "he'll be able to. How do we find him?"

"I don't know," Lucy admits, "but we'll find a way."

"You shouldn't be finding any _ways_," Rudy says. Bonnie watches as Lucy points her eyes skyward then to Abby who shakes her head similarly. Witches versus her dad. Magic versus her dad. Just like always. "Whatever Silas is going to do, you shouldn't be the one handling it."

"I'm the one who started it," Bonnie insists. "I made this mess, I woke him up. He needs to be stopped before he can complete the triangle. And _I_ have to stop him. That's why I need Tyler and Jeremy."

Rudy lets out an exasperated sigh. "Bonnie-"

"Where's Shane?" Bonnie asks, looking to Lucy. "He knows about the triangle and the last twelve deaths."

"Missing," Abby says. "He wasn't there when your friends left the island."

"Then he's with Silas," Bonnie says.

"That's what your boys think," Lucy says.

"And we don't know where Rebekah is," Bonnie says, "but she has the cure. That's...good, I guess. Or not good. If she uses it on Klaus then we won't have any way to stop Silas, but if we use it on Silas then we won't be able to kill Klaus." Rudy, Lucy and Abby watch her while she mumbles to herself, on and on. "We have to find them," Bonnie says finally. "All of them. Silas, Shane, Rebekah."

"We've been looking," Lucy says. "We haven't just been sitting on our asses, you know."

"But you haven't found them."

"No," Lucy admits. "Silas may be shielding himself. Shane with him. The Original, I don't know, but I haven't been able to get a read on her. We took some of her things of hers to use for a locator spell. Nothing worked."

"What about Klaus? Have Tyler and Jeremy talked to him at all?"

"Just once," Abby says. " He thinks Rebekah decided to take the cure and leave town. He hasn't seen her either, and we didn't tell him any different." When Bonnie finishes her tea, Abby takes the cup from her, holding it like she just wanted to put something in her hands.

She needs to see Tyler and Jeremy, and she's not going to be able to do that with her estranged parents and Lucy in the room, watching her.

"You all can go back to sleep," Bonnie says. "We'll talk more in the morning." She folds her legs beneath her and tries to look harmless. "Really. I'm okay. I'm just going to look through the grimoires a little bit, see if there's anything we can use."

"Lucy's already been through them dozens of times," Rudy insists.

"But I haven't," Bonnie says. "I'm fine. Go to sleep."

Abby goes without anymore complaining. Rudy follows soon after, and Bonnie wonders what the sleeping arrangements are.

"Lucy, wait," Bonnie says. "Why's my mom so quiet?"

"She's trying to be respectful of your dad," Lucy says. "He's got his parenting hat on so she doesn't want to rock the boat anymore than she already has. We didn't tell him that you guys killed Stefan and Damon. We thought that may be a bit much for him to process. Your mom tried to make him let Tyler stay though. I tried, too, but I don't think telling him that Tyler's a good looking kid helped any." She nudges Bonnie's arm playfully.

"Probably not," Bonnie says, smiling. "I was dreaming. I saw things, but I don't know what they mean."

"Those are witch dreams for you," Lucy says, patting Bonnie's knee. "They have all this information in them, but no one thinks to pass along the decoder ring. What did you see?"

"Grams," Bonnie says. "Stefan and Damon, Kol's line, the ocean, Jeremy and Tyler. They said things, but they didn't make sense."

"Eventually it all makes sense."

Bonnie can remember the dream she had of April and Stefan. She got that one wrong. Very wrong. But in the end, yes, it made sense.

"I'm gonna get some sleep," Lucy says finally. "Don't worry about your friends. I did protective spells on their houses. Silas can break spells, but it's something."

"Thank you."

Lucy smiles and bends down to hug her. "I'm glad you're awake, kiddo."

Bonnie laughs as Lucy pulls away. "Kiddo?"

"I don't know," Lucy says with a wave of her hand. "I thought we were having a moment."

Bonnie laughs down at her hands.

"I'll cover for you," Lucy adds.

"What do you mean?"

She rolls her eyes. "When you go to Tyler's. Just go straight there, okay? Don't linger anywhere."

Bonnie promises not to.

* * *

After a fast shower and several minutes spent brushing her teeth, Bonnie appears in front of the Lockwood mansion and rings the doorbell. There's no answer. She feels inside the house, searching for him and comes up with nothing. She widens the scope, searching all of the property, and finds him. She bends her steps toward the burial place of Tyler's pack. She sees Tyler sitting on the ground, where the grass has grown some over where the hybrids lie.

"Tyler?"

When he turns, he doesn't look surprised to see her. He stands to kiss her and wraps his arms around her, pulling her in close. "I'm so glad to see you," he says into her ear. "I missed you." He pulls away and gives her a once over. "How do you feel?"

"Good," she assures him. "I'm sorry about my dad."

"Don't worry about it."

"He'll be gone again soon and you can come back," she promises. "There's always some important work thing." She reaches for his hand. "What are you doing out here?"

"I was just talking to them," Tyler says, shrugging his shoulders. He takes in a breath like he's steeling himself for something. "Silas was here."

"What?"

"He left like twenty minutes ago," Tyler says. "He-"

"Lucy said she did protective spells."

"She did," Tyler says. "They didn't hold up, I guess." He opens his mouth to continue, but she cuts him off again.

"You have to come back to my house," she says. "You're not safe here by yourself. I'll tell my dad and it doesn't matter what he says-"

"Bonnie," Tyler says gentle but forceful, "your dad will kill me. We have to talk to Jeremy anyway. This is big. Silas has the cure, and he'll give it to us if you help him."

"Help him with what?"

"He didn't specify," Tyler says, "but I assume he needs help with the massacre or the whole raising the dead thing or something. He needs you to do it, and if you do he'll give us the cure so we can kill Klaus."

"He said that?"

"Yes."

"How did he get-"

"Rebekah wants him to bring Kol and Finn back," Tyler explains. "He already found Elijah's coffin for her."

"Did he open it?" Bonnie asks urgently. She doesn't think they have the ability to take on Elijah right now, too.

"No," Tyler says. "Well, he didn't say he did. I think we're okay on that front at least."

"We have to talk to Jeremy," Bonnie says. "We have to tell him. And I have to tell you what happened in the tomb." She sighs. "There's so much we have to talk about."

Tyler reaches for his phone. "I'll call him."

"No," Bonnie says. "We should talk in person." She squeezes his fingers and pictures Jeremy's room.

* * *

"Gilbert."

"Gilbert, get up."

Jeremy opens his eyes and jumps when he sees Tyler's face hovering over him. "Jesus," he says, sitting up against the headboard while Tyler rolls his eyes at his display. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

It takes him a moment to notice Bonnie sitting on the end of the bed, upright, awake and smiling at him. But once he does it doesn't take him any time to fling an arm around her neck, pulling her to him. "You're back."

"Yeah," she says, as he pulls away. "I'm fine, I feel fine, all that."

"Good," Jeremy says before planting a kiss on her lips. "I missed you. We both missed you."

"I missed you, too," Bonnie says. He kisses her again and feels her smiling beneath his mouth. She looks so...okay.

"Now that we're all caught up," Tyler says. "We have news."

First Bonnie tells them what happened with Silas and Aja and then she tries to explain the dream she had in her trance, but she gets frustrated partway through and gives up. "It was complicated," she says. "There were circles and oceans and Stefan and Damon were there."

"That sounds like a terrible dream," Jeremy says. "And I got a D in Geometry."

Then Tyler starts telling Jeremy about Silas at his house, needing Bonnie's help and promising to hand over the cure if she delivers.

"He can be anyone," Tyler says. "He was Shane at first, then Klaus. Then..." His voice trails off.

"Then?" Jeremy prompts.

"The pack," Tyler says. "He was all of them. That's why he came to me. He said I should remind you of my need, my need to kill Klaus."

"We all want Klaus dead," Jeremy reminds him. But if it came to it, to choosing between using the cure on Silas or Klaus, they would use it on Silas. A powerful immortal witch versus Klaus? They couldn't use it on Klaus and just let Silas stick around to raise his army. What kind of hell would that bring? "We'll find a way to kill him."

"If you don't help him then he'll destroy the cure," Tyler says, looking to Bonnie.

"And he didn't tell you what Bonnie needs to do?" Jeremy asks.

"He said that's witch business," Tyler says with a roll of his eyes. "I'm just a hybrid."

"Well, do we do it?" Bonnie asks.

"It won't be us," Tyler says. "It'll be _you_. It's your magic. It's up to you."

"Everything okay, Jer?"

Elena pokes her head in through the bathroom door and pauses when she sees Tyler and Bonnie there. "Oh," she says. For a while, they're all quiet. "You're awake," she says finally.

Bonnie looks over her shoulder at her, nodding. "Yeah."

Tyler and Jeremy exchange a look.

"Have you called Caroline?" Elena asks. "She was really worried."

Jeremy fights the urge to roll his eyes as Bonnie says, "I'll call her."

Elena leaves without asking anymore questions. When the door is closed behind her, Jeremy sighs. "She was worried, too," he tells Bonnie. "I don't know why she's acting like she wasn't."

Bonnie shrugs her shoulders. She's back to business. "In my dream you told me that we have the cure."

"I did?"

"Maybe this is what you meant?" Bonnie says. "We help him, he gives it to us. It's ours."

"If you help him do some mysterious thing that's going to end with him resurrecting a bunch of dead people to do his bidding," Jeremy says.

"He told me it wasn't like that," Tyler says. "He said they have their free will if he raises them."

"Do you believe that?" Jeremy asks.

Tyler shrugs. "I'm just telling you what he said."

But Jeremy can see Tyler kind of wants to believe it.

* * *

Bonnie takes them back to Tyler's place, where she deposits them in his bedroom and he hurries to pick up the clothes littering the floor. "Sorry about the mess."

"It's not messy," Bonnie tells him, sitting on his bed and glancing around. The last time she was in here was when they were going to kill Stefan, when they come up to figure out how to work around Katherine. It hasn't changed much since then.

"You don't have to stay here with me."

"I know," she says. "I'm not staying for _you_." Her voice takes on a playful lilt, and Tyler can't help but smile.

"No?"

"No," Bonnie says. "I'm staying here for me. I've been sleeping alone for days, and I'd like some company. You can't come to my house so I have to stay here if I want to sleep with you."

"Define _sleep with_."

Bonnie pulls him with her onto the bed, laughing underneath him. He can't believe she can find something to laugh about right now, that she can find something to take joy in when Silas is wandering around and they may end up losing their chance to kill Klaus, that she can take joy in him.

"Your dad's gonna freak," Tyler says, "when he finds out you stayed here with me."

"What's he gonna do?" Bonnie asks. "Ground me?"

"When he found out that I was staying with you, _in your room_, he flipped. Well, he tried not to make it obvious, but he was pissed." He slides a hand down Bonnie's leg to touch her knee so he can hook it around his waist.

"He'll come around." Her hands slide along his back, underneath his shirt then down to the hem of it so she can tug it over his head. When she throws it aside, she twines her arms around his neck to kiss him. "Sleep with me," she whispers against his mouth. When her hands slide down his arms to hop to his chest and to the button of his jeans, he grins.

"This isn't exactly sleeping."

Bonnie pushes his zipper down. "We'll sleep after."

* * *

They don't sleep after. Tyler expects Bonnie to nod off, but she stays awake. That's what twelve days of rest will do to a person. Her fingers trace along Tyler's arm, slung around her neck while he plays with a strand of her hair, curling it around his index finger and then letting it bounce back.

She turns her head toward him. "You can ask me, you know."

"Ask you what?"

"To do it," she says. "See what Silas wants, maybe do whatever it is, get the cure, get your pack, kill Klaus."

"If Silas is the kind of power hungry asshole we've been told he is, that cure may need to be used on him."

"I know," she says, reaching for his hand as her hair uncoils from his finger. "But if he's not and if we _can_ use the cure on Klaus instead, why shouldn't we? If Silas can bring back your pack-"

"I don't want it to be like it's been for you," Tyler says. "I don't want to pressure you into doing anything because I want it. I don't want to assume you'll do these things for me."

"You're not assuming if you're asking," Bonnie says. "You're allowed to ask me. The things I'd do for you, I _know_ you'd do them for me. It's not like before with Elena and Stefan and Damon. It's you and me. We're different. You can ask if you want something from me."

"I don't want anything from you that's gonna hurt you."

"We don't know it'll hurt me."

"We don't know it won't."

"That's why I need to talk to Silas first."

Tyler lets out a heavy sigh. "I want Klaus dead. You and Jeremy do, too, I know that. I don't wanna say I want him dead _more_ because that's not it, I just...I don't know. He took so much from me."

"Let me try to get some of it back," Bonnie says, rolling over so she can look at him. "You can ask me."

"And you can say no."

"I know," she says. "Ask me. If you want me to do something, ask."

"Will you..."

He feels like he doesn't know how to say the words. He remembers when he asked Bonnie to kill Stefan and Damon with him. That was a big ask. This is so much bigger. Then they were going to kill them together. His ass was on the line just as much as hers. Silas, on the other hand, is a witch and this is witch business. Tyler can't help her here. It feels wrong to ask, but he remembers the pack and Klaus. He can leave this town - he _will _- but if Klaus is still around when he goes he doesn't think it'll be real. And that cure has been the only thing they've found that can kill him.

He tries again. "Will you talk to Silas and see what he wants? Please?"

Bonnie rolls so she's on top of him, her knees on either side of his waist. "Yes."

"Thank you," he says. "But promise me that if you don't like what he says, you'll say no. Okay? Promise."

"He'll destroy the cure. Then we won't have a way to stop him or Klaus."

"Qetsiyah turned him into stone," Tyler says. "We can try that. If you don't like what he says, promise you'll say no."

Bonnie presses her lips together. "I promise. But if it's doable, I'll do it."

She thinks a lot of things are doable. And she's Bonnie so a lot of things _are _doable, but she's been asleep for nearly two weeks. Things Silas demands of her aren't what they're used to. "And if I don't want you to do it?" Tyler says.

Bonnie leans so her lips are barely touching his. "You can ask me not to, and I can say no."


	30. Sweet Sacrifice

Sweet Sacrifice

Bonnie met Caroline at the local dress boutique the next day. She got there bright and early. If her dad asked where she was in the morning she'd say Caroline insisted on going shopping for Bonnie's prom dress as time was passing quickly. That explanation would suffice better than the truth: that she stayed the night with Tyler, coming out of sleep to kiss and touch him and be kissed and touched by him.

Bonnie tries to remind herself there are more important things to be distracted with. She _should_ be thinking of finding this dress, of Silas and of the cure. And she is. Silas will be finding her soon enough. She put out the feelers this morning, a quiet summoning that she's sure he'll feel. If he's as eager to talk business as Tyler said then he'll be fast about it.

Bonnie doesn't tell Caroline the truth about her need to shop, but Caroline's happy to oblige either way. Bonnie's sitting on the bench outside the store and smiling at the memory of Tyler's fingers splayed across her lower back while she straddles him, dropping kisses onto his neck when Caroline arrives. She flings her arms around Bonnie's neck and squeezes.

"I'm so glad you're awake," she says. "You have no idea how depressing it was without you."

"I can imagine," Bonnie says. "Did you manage to talk some sense into Maddie Fell?"

Caroline's eyes brighten even more. "Of course not, but I turned her tacky taste elsewhere. I'm handling everything that matters, and she's doing the table decorations."

"Table decorations don't matter?"

Caroline lets out a sigh. "Well, some things must be sacrificed for the greater good. Whatever, let's find you a dress. I can't believe you waited this long. All the good ones are gonna be gone. Can't you just magic yourself up a dress anyway?"

Bonnie shrugs as she follows Caroline into the store. "Maybe. I've never tried."

"It would be a Bonnie Bennett original," Caroline says. She gestures to a navy blue strapless dress. "What about this one? It's pretty."

"Yeah, it is, but no, " Bonnie says, waving her hand toward it. "I want something more...I don't know, not that one."

"You're right, you can't pick the first dress you see," Caroline says. She already has her prom dress, being tailored on the other end of town to be picked up. Bonnie, on the other hand, is slacking. Prom is fast approaching and she fully intends to go, Silas or no Silas, Klaus or no Klaus. There will be a prom, and she will enjoy it (this must be what it feels like to be Caroline). But Bonnie can't show up in sweats and a t-shirt. Even if she could, Caroline would have a heart attack, and when she revived she'd have another one.

"So, are you taking a date to prom?" Caroline asks as she moves on to a different rack, scrunching her face up at a lime green dress with tulle and sparkles.

"I haven't really thought about it," Bonnie says.

"You're not going to take Jeremy?" Caroline asks, with the familiar lilt of someone trying hard to be sound indifferent. "Or Tyler?" She busies herself with dresses on another rack and seems oblivious to Bonnie's pointed stare.

"I haven't thought about it," Bonnie repeats. "I don't know." She should probably start thinking about it. "Who are you taking?"

"Matt," Caroline says. "Just as friends though. I'm not going _there_ again."

"Good call," Bonnie says, turning around to look at Caroline who is continuing to push through the racks. That's when she glimpses a gown behind Caroline's shoulder. It's one she's seen before, the color of crushed rose petals. She reaches past Caroline to touch it, running her fingers over the front. The fabric feels different than it did in her dream. Then it seemed slippery and hard to grasp. Now she can close her fingers around it easily.

"I love it," Caroline says, pulling it from the rack and holding it up to Bonnie. "It's your size, too. Try it on."

Caroline waits outside while Bonnie goes into the dressing room. As she pulls the dress on she tries to come up with a reasonable solution to this prom date situation she didn't even realize she had. If she goes with Tyler then everyone will know they're Bonnie-and-Tyler. It'll be official. If she goes with Tyler, how will Jeremy go to prom? They can't just leave him at home while the rest of them are living it up elsewhere. And what will Jeremy think? She could take Jeremy as her date, but that would mean Tyler wouldn't be her date. Is it appropriate to show up with them both?

Bonnie struggles with the zipper at the back. After a few seconds of fruitless attempts, she latches onto it with her magic and pulls it upward. She knows before looking at it that this is the dress she'll wear to prom. It was there, in her head, and here it is now in her hands.

"Caroline, what do you think?" Bonnie asks as she steps back outside.

Caroline isn't there, but Shane is. He's looking at a floral print dress on a nearby rack when she comes out, but turns his attention to her when he realizes she's come.

"Where's Caroline?" Bonnie demands.

He nods toward the other end of the store where Caroline is looking at other dresses. "I asked her to give us some privacy." Caroline looks up for a moment and catches Bonnie's gaze. She smiles weakly, and Bonnie can't tell if she knows who this is or not. Maybe she just thinks this is Shane, here for a try at civility after all that's happened between them.

"You came faster than I thought," Bonnie says. "Where's the real Shane?"

"I _am_ the real Shane," he says. "Silas is taking care of other business."

"Now you're running his errands?" Bonnie comments. "That's nice of you. What did he promise you in exchange for your services?"

"My wife and son."

Bonnie makes a humphing sound and turns to face the mirror, smoothing her hands down her dress. It fits just as it did in her dream. Perfectly. She won't even need the tailoring, not that she'd have time for it if she did.

"That's pretty," Shane comments. "Prom?"

"Yes," Bonnie answers. "Tell me what Silas needs me to do." She'd rather get this out of the way now so she can return to her dress shopping with Caroline and then go home where she'll have to figure out some way of getting her dad to leave her alone.

"On the night of the full moon," Shane explains, "he wants to perform the final sacrifice."

"First we had twelve humans then twelve hybrids," Bonnie says, "now what?"

"Twelve witches."

Something cold grips her chest, and Bonnie turns around to face him. "No."

"They'll be brought back once Silas lowers the veil," Shane says. "Their deaths are temporary."

"I'm not helping him kill twelve witches for _any_ length of time," she snaps.

Shane lets out a heavy sigh and glances around the store. Caroline's lingering, looking toward them worriedly, but no one else is nearby to overhear. "I was told to remind you that without your cooperation Silas will destroy the cure," he says. "And if you are _still_ unwilling he would like me to tell you that he has both Tyler and Jeremy within his sights at this very moment and he will kill them both."

Bonnie takes a step toward him to grip the front of his shirt. "If he _touches_ them-"

"The only way you'll see them again is by lowering the veil," Shane says, placing a hand on top of hers, "which he is certain you will feel compelled to do as your feelings for them are so strong."

Bonnie swallows a lump in her throat as she snatches her hand away. If she could crush Shane's windpipe right now, she would. When she glances over to Caroline, she sees that her eyes are wide and her mouth is slightly open. She's listening to everything.

"I don't understand why he needs me at all," Bonnie says. "It's a sacrifice. He didn't need me for the others."

"Witches are different," Shane says. "They're complicated, more difficult than humans or a pack of hybrids. He needs magical help."

"He's a _witch_," Bonnie says. "He has all the magic he needs."

"He doesn't," Shane says. "He _needs_ you. He already has the twelve witches coming here. All you have to do is show up, and he'll get you through the rest. It requires no added preparation on your part. Bonnie, they'll come back. Everyone will come back. The Pastor and his people, Tyler's hybrids, these witches. Others, too. Once Silas makes their resurrections permanent, none of this will have mattered. Two thirds of the triangle are already complete. Don't let those sacrifices go to waste. Don't let _Tyler's pack_ go to waste."

"Don't talk to me about Tyler," Bonnie snaps. She wishes Shane would stop talking period.

Shane holds up his hands. "I'm just pointing out to you-"

"I don't need you pointing out _anything _to me." She already knows the stakes here, the possibilities. She knows Tyler's pack is somewhere out there with the chance of returning. She knows that they could come back with nothing having changed, they could be here with Tyler. He'd be their Alpha again.

"Bonnie," Shane says. "Do you remember when you told me why you killed Stefan and Damon Salvatore?"

"Vaguely."

"They took people from you," Shane goes on. "So has Klaus. Now imagine having _all_ those people back here with you, where they belong. You could have your Grams."

"I_ clearly_ recall telling you not to talk about my Grams, Shane."

"So do I," he says with his familiar unbothered smirk, "but don't you want to see her again? Get Tyler's pack, get your Grams. You either get something back for yourself and your friend, or Silas will take everything you still have. Tyler and Jeremy will only be the beginning. Then he'll move on to your other friends, to your father, to your mother, to your cousin. There's absolutely _nothing_ you can lose by helping him, all you can do is gain."

Caroline is wringing her hands across the store, and Bonnie can see her biting her lip. She waits to see if Caroline will say anything, do anything to announce her opinion on the matter, but she only stands there looking at Bonnie and Shane with wide eyes. Somehow she morphs into Sheila Bennett, wearing a slight smile.

_We'll see each other again_, she'd said in Bonnie's dream.

Was this what she meant?

When Caroline becomes herself again, Bonnie turns back to Shane. "I'll do it."

* * *

Jeremy meets Tyler at a diner in the square that neither of them has been to in ages. Jeremy can't even remember what's on the menu and reads it intently until Tyler arrives, ten minutes late.

"Did Bonnie's dad notice she was missing last night?" Jeremy asks as he tries to decide between pancakes or an omelet.

"I hope not," Tyler says. "He already doesn't like me."

Jeremy shrugs. "He likes me." Not that he had a lot of experience with Bonnie's dad, who was usually gone. Even when he and Bonnie were together, Rudy had been little more than a specter. He knew Jeremy existed after years of knowing his family, and Bonnie had assured Jeremy she'd told her dad about them being together. She must have told them they broke up, but Rudy was always perfectly nice to him.

Tyler makes a face. "You cheated on his daughter with a ghost. He doesn't like you."

"He might not know that," Jeremy says. "He also doesn't know that I was shacking up with Bonnie, too."

"I could tell him if you'd like," Tyler jokes. He leans forward to tap his fingers on the tabletop. "How's it going with you and Elena?"

"Well, since you bit her head off on the island-"

Tyler sighs. "I didn't bite her head off."

"You were a dick," Jeremy says. "Your words. And hers."

Elena and Tyler getting into it wasn't surprising. Of course they did. Jeremy was just glad they'd managed not to do any permanent harm to each other, and they hadn't brought it back with them. They were back to never really acknowledging the other's presence.

"Anyway," Tyler says. "Since then?"

"I dunno," Jeremy says. "She's different."

"So something I said got through?"

"She hasn't said anything to me about it except that you two had an argument in which you were a dick," Jeremy says. "Other than that, nothing. I have no idea what she's thinking now, but we're talking more."

"About Stefan and Damon?"

"No."

"What about?"

"The house, the weather, school, college, what we're going to have for dinner," Jeremy says. "She's going to Whitmore since the financial aid came through, and she's going to commute."

"That's it?"

"And I'm going to stay here and finish school then we'll see," Jeremy says. "I don't know if you and Bonnie were serious about me going with you to California, but I should probably stay here with Elena."

Tyler looks down at his hands folded in front of him. "Yeah, okay. Me and Bonnie haven't really talked about it since so...who knows?"

"You guys should go."

Tyler raises his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah. California would be nice. I could come visit you guys over breaks, and you'll come back for holidays, right? Thanksgiving, Christmas."

Tyler nods along.

"It would only be a little bit of change," Jeremy adds. "We're adaptable."

Tyler smiles. "We are."

Tyler stiffens, looking over Jeremy's shoulder at something. When he swivels around to see, there's a woman coming toward them with a head of shining, dark curls and olive toned skin. She looks familiar, but Jeremy can't remember where he's seen her before. She comes to stand alongside their table, smiling.

"Hello, Tyler," she says.

"Silas," Tyler says through gritted teeth. He trains his gaze on the table top, and Jeremy can see the tension in his shoulders, the clench of his fists.

"Silas?" Jeremy questions, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Kim was one of my pack," Tyler says. "She's dead, but he likes to wear her face."

"She was a beautiful young woman," Silas remarks. "May I sit?"

"No," Tyler says quickly, finally looking up at their guest. "What do you want?"

Silas cocks his head to the side. "You spoke to Bonnie. I appreciate when people do as they're asked." He turns his head toward Jeremy. "The hunter." His gaze lingers across Jeremy's bare arm, following the outline of his Mark. Silas reaches to grip his wrist, squeezing it so tightly it may bruise. He only tightens his hold when Jeremy tries to pull away, and he shoves up the sleeve of his shirt to look at it better.

"I do approve," Silas says, running one of Kim's fingers over the Mark. "Qetsiyah would have been proud. She always had an appreciation for good magic, as one would appreciate art. And you, Jeremy Gilbert, are a work of art." He finally releases Jeremy's arm and the skin is red where he held it. "A man gifted with the drive and the ability to hunt and kill things like _him_." He nods his head toward Tyler. "Though you've made an exception with this one. I see why Bonnie cares for you, the creation of her own family's magic."

Jeremy lifts an eyebrow. "Are you flirting with me?"

Silas is not amused. "Upon the completion of the sacrifice and the lowering of the veil, you'll get your cure," he says, leaning down and lowering his voice. "Then you complete your plans of vengeance and murder."

"Bonnie agreed to whatever you need?" Tyler says.

"She did," Silas says. "It's a good thing, too, or else I would have had to kill you both." Jeremy looks to Tyler who is as wide-eyed as he is. "Don't worry," he says, "Bonnie assures me that won't be necessary. Enjoy your breakfast."

* * *

When Tyler heads to Bonnie's house he does a quick check to see if her dad's there. His car isn't in the driveway, and Tyler can't hear him inside. Still, he'll try to keep this brief just in case he comes back. Maybe he's out with Lucy and Abby because neither of them is there either.

Bonnie's in her room, hanging a garment bag on the back of her closet door. "What's that?" Tyler asks, leaning against the doorframe.

"Prom dress," Bonnie answers, running her hands across the bag's front. "Found it today."

"Yeah, I have to find my tux," Tyler says. "It's around my house somewhere."

"You have a tux of your own?"

"Lockwoods don't rent."

Bonnie throws her head back and laughs. Then she comes toward him to slide her arms around his waist, lifting her lips to his for a kiss. Tyler obliges, holding her face in his hands. "You talked to Silas," he says.

Bonnie nods, and her smile falters a little. "I did."

"What did he want?"

"Help with the final sacrifice," she says. "I told him I would."

"You're going to help him sacrifice twelve people? You're okay with that?"

Bonnie pulls away from him and she wrings out her hands. "Twelve witches," she says. "He has to sacrifice twelve witches."

"Bonnie-"

"I already told him I'd do it."

"You don't have to do this," Tyler says. "I told you last night you didn't have to."

"He'll kill you. And Jeremy," Bonnie says. "We'll lose the cure. I don't have a choice."

Tyler swallows. "You _do_. Jeremy and I can take care of ourselves. You don't need to do this for us. And we already talked about the cure. You don't-"

"It's not just you," Bonnie says, "it's everyone. My dad, Abby, Lucy, Caroline, Elena, Matt. _Everyone_. And..." Her voice trails off.

"What?"

"It's not that bad of a deal," Bonnie finishes.

"_What_?"

"All of you stay safe," she explains, stepping forward to take his hands, "and we get people we've lost back. You get your pack, I get my Grams , and Jeremy gets his parents, Jenna, John."

"Bonnie-"

"We deserve this," Bonnie says. "We've lost _so much_. Why shouldn't we get some of it back?" She places her hands on either side of his neck, drawing careful circles along his skin. "I want to see my Grams again."

"I get it," he says. And he does. He wants to see his pack, wants to see Hayley. Even Mason and Jules. Sometimes Tyler even thinks he wants to see his dad, if only to prove that he _is_ something, someone. "Just be careful."

"I will," Bonnie says. "We've got some time anyway." Her smile returns, and she kisses him again. She's been kissing him a lot today. He can't complain.

"Bonnie," he says against her mouth, "you're going to get me in trouble. If your dad finds me here..."

"You haven't been banned from the house, Tyler."

"I've definitely been banned from your room."

"I'm a witch," she says. He hears her door close behind him. "No one has to know you're here. There are spells..."

There's a knock on the door. "You haven't done those spells yet so I know he's here," Lucy calls.

Bonnie rolls her eyes, but Tyler laughs as she opens the door for Lucy to poke her head in. "Good, I caught you while you were clothed. Rudy's gonna be back in ten, kid. You should get going. I've gotta talk to my little cousin anyway."

"Got it," Tyler says, leaning to kiss Bonnie one more time. "I'll call you later."

_I'll come over_, Bonnie tells him. _After they're asleep._

Tyler tries to keep his nod discreet, but he's sure Lucy noticed.

* * *

"You're sacrificing witches," Lucy says as soon as Tyler's gone, her formerly amused expression morphing into one that is more serious than Bonnie's ever seen on Lucy's face. She's still surprised Lucy is here. She keeps expecting her to leave now that Bonnie's up and about again, but she's still here and doesn't seem to be making any plans to go.

"You heard that, huh?" Bonnie says, sitting on her bed. She can feel a lecture coming.

Lucy takes in a breath as she closes the door. "This is rough stuff."

"I-"

"I'm not going to try to stop you," Lucy says. "You're not a little kid. I can't tell you what to do and expect you to do it, but I am telling you not to do it."

"They'll come back."

"Dead things aren't supposed to come back."

"That doesn't mean they can't," Bonnie insists. "We're witches. Anything is possible with us. I've brought Tyler and Jeremy back before."

"Think of where you're getting this information from. _Silas. _You can't trust him."

"I don't."

"You're trusting him enough to help him do this," Lucy says. "That's too much."

"I'm still going to do it," Bonnie says.

Lucy presses her lips together as she sits next to Bonnie on the bed. "Then tell me everything about the sacrifice. I want to know what you're doing."

* * *

The night of the full moon arrives, but Bonnie barely realizes. She's too busy trying to catch up on homework. Finals are going to be terrible with all the days she's missed, but if she can just scrape by the C's on them, she should be able to manage decent grades in her classes. It helps that most of her teachers think she's right on track, courtesy of Caroline and Tyler.

Bonnie takes a break from her French to get ready to leave. There's a clearing in the woods calling her name, as well as the names of twelve witches who are going to die tonight. She reminds herself they'll all be back, as will lots of other people. Her dad has been removed from the house, better to keep her way unimpeded. Despite her protests, against doing the sacrifice, against occupying Rudy, Abby has taken on the job of taking him out to dinner.

"You sure you want to do this?" Jeremy asks as he joins Bonnie in her room.

"Yes. Is Tyler still freaking out?"

"Internally," Jeremy says. "He has complete faith in you, just not in Silas. I don't either, by the way."

"That makes three of us," Bonnie says, "but I can do this."

"I know you can," he assures her. "But do you want us to go with you?"

She shakes her head. "You don't have to. Magic I can do on my own."

"We'll go if you want us to," Jeremy says.

Bonnie smiles. "Thanks." She smiles as he leans to kiss her, brushing his lips across hers with deliberate softness.

"Oh! Sorry."

They pull apart at the sound of Elena's voice.

"I'm sorry," she repeats. "I'll come back."

"No, it's fine," Jeremy says. "When you're ready, let us know," he tells Bonnie before stepping past his sister and out the door.

"So, tonight's the night," Elena says, sliding her hands into her back pockets.

Bonnie's still confused about why Elena is spending so much time at her house. Maybe it's because Jeremy is there now, putting in his hours even though he doesn't live here anymore. Her presence while Bonnie was asleep made sense. Everyone was here then, but Matt and Caroline have returned to their usual routine. Elena, on the other hand, stays downstairs in the kitchen, sometimes doing homework, sometimes scribbling in her journal, but she just sits and only sometimes speaks.

Bonnie doesn't know why she doesn't just tell her to leave.

"Yeah," Bonnie says, "tonight's the night."

Elena lingers in the doorway and then takes a hesitant step toward Bonnie's closet door. "Is this your prom dress?" she asks, gesturing to the garment bag.

"Yeah."

"Can I look at it?"

Bonnie blinks. "Yeah."

Elena unzips the bag. "It's really pretty. Caroline said it was."

"Thanks."

"Are you going with anyone?"

"I don't know," Bonnie says.

"Yeah, me either," Elena says. "If you wanted to go with Tyler, I could get a ticket for Jeremy, too. Technically he'd be my date, but we'd all be there together."

"I guess," Bonnie says, more confused. She wants to ask Elena what she's trying to say or do or what she's thinking, but she can't make the words come.

As Bonnie reaches for her sweater, Elena speeds to beat her to it and holds it out with a weak smile. "Thanks," Bonnie says, pulling it on.

"You're welcome."

Bonnie tries to give Elena her own awkward smile. "I should get back downstairs," Elena says. When she goes Bonnie closes the door behind her, trying to figure out what this is all supposed to mean.

When she turns back to her bed, Aja is sitting there. She's wearing dark red lipstick and her curls look shiny now that they're out of Silas' dusty tomb.

Bonnie jumps. "I'm helping Silas," she says. "You don't need to supervise."

Aja's lips curve into a smile. "You _are_ helping Silas, and he appreciates it. And your sacrifice."

Bonnie stills. "My what?"

Aja rises to her feet. As she steps closer, Bonnie reaches for her with her magic to grip Aja's heart. For a moment, her face tightens and her mouth twitches, but she shakes it off.

"Look around you, Bonnie," Aja says, her voice clear and cutting.

It's only then that Bonnie notices the other people in her bedroom. More witches, all staring at her with cool expressions.

"My coven," Aja says. "You're out of your league, Bonnie Bennett."

"Lucy!" Bonnie calls. Her living room is full of people. Lucy, Jeremy, Tyler, Elena. A witch and two vampires and a hunter. They will come. "Lucy!"

"Like I said, you're out of your league."

* * *

"Bonnie!"

Lucy's got a set of lungs on her. Her yell seems to shake the whole house. She was perfectly quiet a minute ago where she was reading through a grimoire on the sofa, but now she's yelling and Jeremy doesn't know why.

"What's wrong?" Jeremy asks.

"_That's _wrong," Lucy says, slamming a grimoire down in front of Jeremy. He stares at the page she's opened, one covered in messy writing with diagrams and other scribbles. He can make out "full moon" and "transfer", but the rest of it is unreadable.

"Care to translate?" Tyler says, leaning to read it as well. Elena peeks as well.

"You don't need the full moon for the sacrifice of twelve witches in the triangle," Lucy says. "You _do_ need the full moon if you're trying to take on the magic of another witch. Permanently." She jabs the page with her pointer finger. "Silas doesn't need Bonnie to sacrifice those witches. He can do that on his own. He needs to sacrifice _her_. He wants her magic."

She calls for Bonnie again, more urgently this time.

There's no response.

"She didn't leave did she?" Lucy asks.

"No, we're going together," Jeremy says, but there's a twisting feeling in his gut. He locks eyes with Tyler.

"I'll get her," Elena says before she speeds up the stairs. She's back within seconds, telling them what Jeremy already knew. "She's gone."

Jeremy can't wait until they're at a point where they never have to come out into these woods ever again. If there's a reason to leave Mystic Falls, it's to go someplace with zero wooded areas, just concrete, cement and glass. He's sick of trees and dark places and the scent of dirt. And he's sick of these types of things happening in the woods.

"This is where the sacrifice needs to be," Lucy says. "But Bonnie's not here. I can't sense her."

The locator spell they tried didn't work. Bonnie was blocked. All they had to go on was the location she'd been given of the sacrifice. That's where they were now, but Bonnie wasn't.

"She can't be too far," Lucy says. "The spell has to take place beneath the full moon. She must be out here somewhere."

"If they're going to sacrifice Bonnie," Elena says, "does that mean the other sacrifice isn't happening tonight?"

"I think it's still happening," Tyler says.

"How do you know?" Jeremy asks.

"There are people coming."

"I can hear them, too," Elena adds.

Lucy's nodding. "Witches."

"Bonnie?" Tyler questions. "Is she with them?"

"No," Lucy says, "but I know one of them. So do you." Tyler and Jeremy turn their heads toward her. "You two didn't meet her. I did." She looks to Elena. "So did you. It's Ramona. Remember her?"

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! **


	31. Two Circles

Two Circles

Bonnie opened her eyes and saw the woods. They were lit up with flames, the trees illuminated by the burning fires. She heard chanting, spellwork, felt the magic around her. When she tried to sit up, something pushed her back down. It was hard enough that the air was forced from her lungs. She kicked her legs pitifully, looking for leverage to push herself upright.

She found none.

"Stay still, Bonnie," Aja says. Her face comes into view, hovering over Bonnie's own, impassive and uncaring. "It'll be easier for all of us that way."

Bonnie isn't very interested in making killing her _easy_. Her fingers claw at the ground, scratching up dirt beneath her nails. Her struggling is futile. Her body only presses against a barrier that keeps her down, sitting on her chest as a reminder. She tries to break it herself, but it stays put. There are twelve witches holding her down. She's just one.

_You're out of your league, Bonnie Bennett. _

"Bonnie," Aja says. "Relax. It'll be over soon. A few more minutes and we can get started."

"Silas promised me-"

"He promised you the safety of your friends and family," Aja says. "He said nothing about you. I can assure you that your friends will be fine. You'll even get the cure."

For a moment, Bonnie goes still. "What about the sacrifice?"

"It's happening," Aja says. "Don't worry. The other witches will be doing their part soon. We all have our work to do, but those witches are very willing. When this is all over, Silas will have your magic."

"My magic?"

"The magic of a Bennett witch," Aja says casually. "Qetsiyah bound him well. He's awake, but he's not what he once was. He will be though, once you've served your purpose."

"He doesn't need to do this," Bonnie says. "He has my bracelet. And I was going to help him anyway. _Please._"

"It's not the same. He needs the magic to be _his_," Aja says. "He can't rely on you to do everything that needs to be done, can he?" She touches Bonnie's forehead almost tenderly, pushing her hair away. "It's okay, Bonnie. Silas will raise the dead, starting with those who gave their lives for his cause. You'll be the first."

"If you're so sure Silas is going to raise the dead," Bonnie demands, turning her head away from Aja's reaching fingers, "why aren't you and your coven the ones sacrificing yourselves tonight?"

"Because," Aja answers, pulling her hand away, "we have to kill you. He couldn't entrust this task to just anyone." She turns her head toward something else in the distance. "If you want to talk to her, now's the time." When she moves away, she's replaced by Shane.

"Hello, Bonnie," he says, looking genuinely apologetic. Or as apologetic as a person can look after they've intentionally led someone to their own sacrifice. "I'm sorry about the deception."

"It's nothing new with you," she says bitterly.

He looks slightly ashamed. In the firelight he looks older, older than he did in the dress shop, older than he's ever looked before. She doesn't know what he's being doing with Silas, but whatever it is has aged him. Or maybe she's just imagining it. Maybe she wants to think he actually cares that she's going to die here.

"I wouldn't be helping them if I didn't believe you'd come back," Shane says. She feels him touch her hand.

"Will I have my magic when I'm brought back?" Bonnie demands.

Shane withdraws his hand. "No. Silas will keep your magic."

There's a window forming, a small one, like a tear in the magic. It's not big enough to do anything substantial - nothing that will get her out of this particular situation - but there's enough to do something. If she chooses right, there's still hope, however small, that she'll get out of this with her magic and her life.

Shane brought her here. This has always been what he wanted, for people to die for him, for what _he_ wanted. He helped her with her magic so she could turn it in the direction he needed, so she could raise Silas and end up here, in this pentagram as an unwilling sacrifice.

"I hope you're right," Bonnie says, turning her head to the sky. The tree branches crisscross above her, their ends mingling and intertwining, heavy with leaves. "About the dead coming back. For your sake, at least."

Bonnie doesn't blink as flames engulf him, not even as his scream fills the air. The barrier that the witches have erected protects her from the fire, but she wouldn't care if it burned her. She's going to die here anyway. At least this way, she took one of them out with her. And if anyone's out here - if Tyler or Jeremy or anyone is out here, anyone who could help her - they'll know exactly where she is.

The tear she found is quickly sewn up. None of the witches try to help Shane, even as he curls on the ground, his screams dying off into nothing.

Aja vanishes his body, and Bonnie wishes she knew how to do that. None of them look particularly affected by his death. Shane was no one to them. And he must not have been very important to their plans. Did Silas just keep him around as another believer? Someone else to promote his cause? Or does death truly mean so little, especially now when resurrection is within sight?

Bonnie wonders what that feels like, complete and total faith. Even when she was told the witches would come back to life - the witches she was ready to help sacrifice tonight - there was doubt. Aja and her coven, even Shane, they have no doubt. Bonnie would like to believe in it, too. If she's going to die here, it would be nice to come back at some point. It would be nice to believe that when she dies.

There would be no fear.

There is fear. And there is doubt.

If she does come back, she won't have her magic. Will it be the same as Abby becoming a vampire? Or will it be different because Bonnie is truly alive? Will she hate it the way Abby did, not being able to feel the nature? Or will she just be glad that she doesn't have to feed on blood for survival? Could she get her magic back? Can she take it away from Silas as he he's going to take it from her?

That gives Bonnie a little jolt, a little something to look forward to. When she comes back, _if_ she comes back, she will reclaim her magic from Silas.

Well," Aja says, as she kneels near Bonnie's head, "are you ready?"

"Where is Silas?" Bonnie asks.

"Somewhere safe," Aja says, "ready to receive your offering."

"It's not an offering," Bonnie says. "Offerings are _offered_. This is being stolen."

It's all the same to Aja. "Either way he gets it. And you and I are here again, about to do something great."

That's all well and good, but if there was one tear they may be others, spaces left vulnerable. If Bonnie can find them, use them... Aja can try to do all the great things she wants, but Bonnie's got nothing to lose now. Jeremy and Tyler and everyone else are far off, out of Aja's reach. If she fights her now, the only person who will suffer isher. And she'll suffer anyway.

She may die. She may come back. Either way, she's not going to go down without a fight.

* * *

"I didn't call her," Elena says, sounding panicky at Ramona's presence. "I swear."

"No one thinks you did," Tyler says. Whatever it is Ramona wants, Silas has promised it to her.

The witches are doing something, drawing a shape in the dirt. They set fires. None of them speak to one another. The one Lucy pointed out as Ramona stands in the circle's center, murmuring quietly to herself in another language. Tyler has no idea what she's saying, and he doesn't care much. Bonnie isn't here. They need to find Bonnie.

"We need to go," he says. "Bonnie's out here somewhere."

Lucy nods her head. "Then let's go."

Tyler speeds away from them. Or at least he tries to. He rebounds against an invisible barrier and falls backward, feeling a tingling in his bones. As he drags himself to his feet, he sees that Ramona has turned her body to face him. She looks him over with plain distate.

"Hybrid," she says. "I remember you."

He remembers her, too. He remembers them getting rid of this particular problem. Or thinking they had.

She's taller than she first appeared and her skirt swirls around her ankles. There are glasses perched on her nose, and a nose ring that glimmers in the glow of the fires. Looking at him, she seems to have no opinion other than annoyance. The recognition is there, but she doesn't care about him. What they did to Stefan and Damon is nothing to her now that she's no longer obligated to keep up his work.

"Ramona," Lucy calls, stepping into view. Elena and Jeremy come with her. "I could have sworn I told you to leave town."

Ramona turns and appears almost pleasantly surprised to see her. "You did," she admits. "But the circumstances have changed." Her gaze flits over Elena who she gives a curt nod to.

"How so?" Lucy inquires.

"Do you remember the vampire you found in New Orleans? You went looking for me. You found him."

"The one who told me all about your deal with Stefan Salvatore," Lucy says. "I remember. How's he doing?"

"He's dead."

Lucy does a better job at hiding her surprise than the rest of them.

"I loved him," Ramona says.

"He sold you out," Lucy says slowly, tentatively.

"He was confused at the time," Ramona explains. "He wasn't well. You took full advantage."

Lucy makes an disbelieving huffing sound.

"What happened to him?" Elena questions. That's the obvious question, isn't it?"

"You did," Ramona says. "_You_, to be specific." She trains her eyes on Jeremy.

Tyler looks at them all, thinking he's catching on now. The flicker of understanding in Lucy's eyes, her gaze falling slightly to the ground, tells him she is reaching the same conclusion.

Jeremy isn't. "I...don't-"

"You killed Kol Mikaelson, didn't you?" Ramona says sharply, daring him to lie.

Jeremy straightens up where he stands, pushes his shoulders back. "Yeah. I killed Kol."

Ramona's eyes narrow. "Carlos - that was his name- was of his line. He died with all the others. This," she gestures to the other witches around her, who seem to be paying more attention now, "is not _my_ coven. We're simply united with the same purpose."

"What purpose?" Tyler asks. He moves closer to Jeremy, just in case they try something.

"We lost people close to us," Ramona says, "who died the night _he_ chose to kill Kol. We're here to see them rise again and to do our part to make that possible."

"You're going to sacrifice yourselves?" Elena asks.

"We'll come back," Ramona says.

Tyler blinks at them, looking for a trace of doubt in any of their faces. They are all resolute.

Lucy blows out a deep breath. "Would Carlos want you to do this? Risk your life for him?"

"We'll never know will we?" Ramona snaps.

_I can give you a window,_ Lucy says. Hearing her voice in his head instead of Bonnie's is a shock, but Tyler thinks he hides his surprise well. Ramona doesn't seem to notice. She only has eyes for Jeremy. _You have to go as soon as I tell you. _

_Okay. _He casts a sidelong glance to Jeremy and meets his eye. He hears Lucy, too. Elena as well probably. But if they all go, it's just Lucy here to face twelve witches by herself. Will Ramona and the others try to hurt her?

Bonnie's out here somewhere, but if Jeremy and Elena get away to look for her, Tyler can stay with Lucy. He remembers Bonnie wanting her to leave, wanting more than anything for Lucy to keep her visit to Mystic Falls brief in case something like this happened. She's helped them enough. She doesn't need to do anything more than what she already has, and she definitely doesn't need to risk her life.

Ramona looks at Elena, cocking her head to the side. "You've given up on your vengeance."

"It wasn't vengeance," Elena says. Tyler doesn't know what her relationship with Ramona was, outside of Ramona fulfilling her obligation to Stefan, but whatever it was won't suffice to draw her from this path she's chosen.

"It should have been." She curls her fingers into fists. "You should have done everything you could to avenge them, just like you should be doing anything to get them back. If you loved them half as much as you say you did, you'd be doing everything in your power. I know he came to you."

_Who did? _Tyler thinks, but then he figures he already knows. He and Jeremy look toward Elena who holds Ramona's gaze defiantly. Or maybe she's just intent on not looking at them.

Whatever this window is that Lucy can provide, hopefully it'll be a good one, and hopefully it will be soon.

"Silas told you he could bring them back and you sent him away," Ramona says. "How could you do that if you loved them?" She doesn't care to hear Elena's answer, not that Elena's in much of a hurry to give her one. "I didn't come here for revenge, but then it just walked right up to me."

Jeremy is choking just as Tyler reaches for him. It's a sick sound, one Tyler hopes never to hear again. It's a ragged, clawing cough. Then he goes silent and all Tyler can hear are Jeremy's futile attempts at drawing breath. He's got a hand on Jeremy's shoulder, squeezing as if that will help.

_Go_. Lucy's voice resounds in his head as Jeremy falls to the ground, clutching at his throat helplessly.

Elena runs urgently to Jeremy's other side. "It's gonna be okay," she says. "You're gonna be okay."

Tyler is taking too long. He knows this. So does Lucy. _Go_, she says. He can hear her annoyance. _ I'll take care of him. _ She still isn't looking at him, at any of them. Just Ramona, just the witches.

Reluctantly he goes, going past the former place of the barrier with ease. He keeps running, the woods turning to a black blur around him. When he's far enough away, he pauses, trying to hear. There comes a scream, long and agonized. For a moment he thinks it may be Jeremy, but it's coming from the opposite direction and it would be hard for Jeremy to scream while suffocating.

Tyler goes toward it.

* * *

"Please stop!" Elena's screaming and Jeremy can feel her hands on him, even as his vision goes spotty. It's getting harder and harder to see her. He'll pass out soon, maybe die. "Ramona, _please!_"

It's not working.

"Ramona," Elena says again. "It was my idea to kill Kol. _Mine._"

Jeremy can't hear Ramona's response, but he hears Elena's scream. She releases him to clutch her head. _Don't_, Jeremy thinks vaguely. _Not her fault. _

Why does it take so long to choke to death?

He feels Elena's fingers on his again. They're shaking which is understandable considering the hell that must be taking place in her brain right now. She closes her hand around his, around the hand on which he wears his ring.

Yes, his ring. Maybe Ramona doesn't know about it, doesn't realize it's there. Maybe no one ever told her. No need to remind her.

Then he's breathing. Coughing, too but mostly breathing. Elena's aneurysm has faded, and she tightens her hold on his hand as he sucks down precious air.

Lucy has stepped in front of them. Whatever she did, thank God she did it. "They're just kids," he hears her say. "And Silas has promised them safety."

"Silas isn't here, and they weren't kids when they wiped out an entire line of vampires," Ramona hisses.

"Yes, they were," Lucy says. "They were just incredibly competent for a pair of teenagers."

"Competent," Ramona scoffs. Through his blurred vision, Jeremy can see her smile. "Will you kill us, Lucy? That's all we want, truly. The sacrifice will be complete."

She's right. Silas will get what he wants despite everything, despite betraying them and Bonnie. He'll get his twelve dead witches no matter what.

Jeremy can feel his senses returning to him as he inhales. He can feel his gun against his back, in the waistband of his jeans. A wooden bullet to the heart will kill anyone as easy as it'll kill a vampire. While Ramona and the others are focused on Lucy, he might be able to fire one off before they can react. It'll have to be a good shot, but he's gotten pretty good. He might be able to hit Ramona or perhaps one of the others standing nearby. One of them may be better. They don't seem as occupied with him right now.

"I'm not going to complete your sacrifice," Lucy says. "I only need to kill one of you. If one of you dies apart from the others, in a manner that doesn't match up, it becomes useless. Rituals are very specific that way. Same time, same place, same way."

"I'm a witch, too," Ramona says tiredly. "I don't need a lesson on ritual."

_We just need time_, Lucy tells him. _Just time. _

Jeremy doesn't think they have it. He squeezes Elena's hand, looks pointedly at the witch closest to them, a man with stubble on his chin and dark eyes fixed on Lucy. The element of surprise is their only advantage. These witches can kill them both easily, and Lucy won't be able to interfere forever. Elena nods. If he fails, Elena won't.

"You kill me, they'll just use you," Ramona says.

"Then I'll kill two of you," Lucy says. "How is it you plan on dying anyway? The woods, the fire, why all this?"

"It would be an insult to die in any other way," Ramona says. "We're witches. We deserve a bit better than that."

Jeremy lets go of Elena's hand. "Wait for me."

Elena nods.

He pulls the gun, fires twice, aiming for the heart. The witch sees it coming. Jeremy thinks he can see the bullets dropping in the air to land harmlessly on the ground.

Elena, on the other hand, doesn't fail. She's on him instantly, twisting his head around. Jeremy feels pride, triumph, lots of things. They all ebb away as Elena collapses to the ground. She's the one choking now, blood spurting from her mouth. Her eyes grow wide, and she clutches at her throat. It reminds him of Rebekah, back in Silas' tomb.

Jeremy scrambles toward her, but he doesn't get to her before he's being flung through the air.

Breathing is once again difficult as he lands hard on the ground, the air forced from his lungs. He expects to hear Lucy's voice in his head. Maybe she'll be pissed, a little proud? Who knows? They've got one witch down. If they try to use Lucy instead... Maybe she can kill one more.

Jeremy blinks up at the sky, hearing Elena's pained whimpers. He tries to move, but something may be broken. Like his back. He really can't tell. He can't feel anything. That's not encouraging. He can't turn his head either. Also not encouraging.

There is some kind of snarling sound, a scream here, a scream there. The firelight that illuminates this part of the forest seems to flicker. The trees go from reddish orange to black to reddish orange again as strange shapes move across their trunks. There are footsteps, a light breeze across his face, gunfire, the sick cracking of bones.

Then Elena's face over his.

There's blood on her mouth and dripping from her nose, but she's okay otherwise. He doesn't need to speak before she's taking a bite of her wrist and lowering it to his mouth. He swallows it down, bids it to work quickly.

"What's going on?" he asks, when Elena pulls her wrist away.

"Bonnie's mom is here," she says with a bloody, happy smile. "And Bonnie's dad and Caroline. Sheriff Forbes, too."

That's good. That's really good.

But all these people shouldn't be here helping them. They're gonna be fine now. "We have to find Bonnie."

* * *

The moon illuminates them. If the fires weren't lit, he would still be able to see this. Eleven witches in a circle, Bonnie and another witch at its center. He has no idea what to do. He's alone up against twelve witches. If Bonnie was any state to help, he wouldn't be too worried. But she's not. She's _really, really_ not. He can see her struggling against them. If she's struggling, he has no chance.

"Tyler."

He spins around, startled only to relax when he sees it's Abby. "What are you doing here?" he questions, whispering. He doubts the witches can hear him over their chanting and the crackle of the flames and Bonnie's cries of resistance.

"I'm here to get my daughter home," Abby says. "Lucy called us here."

"Us?"

"Rudy and I, the sheriff, Caroline. We stopped Ramona and the others."

"So the sacrifice isn't happening."

"No, it's happening," Abby says. "That's the only way we're getting out of here with Bonnie alive."

Tyler understands. "You want to kill them all? We're not going to be able to take them by ourselves. We should wait for the others at least."

"Bonnie doesn't have the time for that," Abby says. She's right. Time is slipping. The longer they wait, the closer Bonnie comes to getting sacrificed herself. "We only need to kill one. That's very possible."

But there are twelve of them. "What do you mean?" Tyler asks.

"Bonnie's strong," Abby says. He thinks he might have heard a little pride there. "She's a Bennett. She'll fight them."

"Will that be enough to stop them?"

"No."

So much for that.

"They'll need to channel each other," Abby says, "they'll lend all their power to the one in the middle, the one with Bonnie. If she dies, they all die. And you _can_ kill her, provided there's a distraction."

And the sacrifice will be complete. Silas will get he wants, even if it's not _everything _ he wanted. Tyler can't make himself care. Bonnie's in that pentagram with a dozen cultish witches around her with their hearts set on killing her.

Tyler nods his agreement. "Okay, so I'll draw their attention-"

"No, I'll do that."

"They could kill you."

"Believe me, I know," Abby says. "I was witch once, remember?"

"Let me do it instead."

"_No_. I'm the adult, you're the kid," Abby snaps. "She's my daughter. If anyone's gonna die for her, it'll be me. If we do this right, that won't have to happen. Besides, you're a hybrid and you're older. You'll move faster than I can, even if it's just by a fraction, and we need all the advantages we can get. They'll be occupied with me for a few seconds. That's your chance. You don't hesitate. _Snap her neck_. Understand?"

Tyler nods.

From the circle comes a cry of pain, but it didn't come from Bonnie. The other witch claps a hand to her throat. The cut isn't deep enough to do fatal harm, but Tyler can smell the blood. "Bonnie," the witch hisses, "you're going to make me very happy to kill you." When she slaps Bonnie across the face, something hot flares in Tyler's chest.

"She's resisting!" the witch cries. "Link with me!"

The other witches don't hesitate. They raise their arms, close their eyes, speak a language Tyler knows nothing of.

Tyler only shares a brief look with Abby before she's taking off. She cuts through the dark, racing toward the circle. He actually thinks she may make it to kill the witch herself. She gets so close, but then it's like she's being gripped in midair and slammed to the ground, the impact kicking up dirt.

Tyler only needs to hear Abby's scream once as her back arches off the ground, bones snapping. He starts running, expecting something to stop him. He gets across into the circle, past Abby even. He's right behind the witch. Even as he breaks her neck, he's waiting for something to stop him. It's not until she sways and her body slumps to the ground that Tyler realizes it's done. The flames flare and then go dark, sucked into the earth as if they were never there to begin with as the witches fall in turn until Tyler is standing amidst a dozen dead bodies, twelve dead witches. They lie there so pitifully, so still when they were just standing moments ago, sharing their power. Now they're dead.

Tyler looks away from the witch's body to reach for Bonnie. She seems to barely be seeing him, as her eyes flutter open and closed and open again. "Is my mom okay?" she asks.

Abby is pushing herself to her feet. "I'm fine," she says, reaching Bonnie's side.

Bonnie is trying to say something as her eyes flutter closed and stay that way.

* * *

The triangle is complete.

Bonnie is alive.

Twenty-four witches died. So did Shane.

It's a higher body count than any of them thought they'd end the night with, but none of the bodies are theirs. That makes it a little better, keeps the mood in Bonnie's house a little lighter.

"He can lower the veil now," Lucy says as she pours some vodka into her coffee mug. She smiles and adds some to Tyler's, too. "Or he can _try_ to."

She's not concerned with the witches who died, with Ramona or the other one. Bonnie managed to mutter that the one Tyler killed was Aja, the one from Silas' tomb. There's not a lot of sympathy going around for those twelve.

Ramona and the others though...

Tyler finds Jeremy in Bonnie's room. Rudy is allowing them some time to see her now. He's pissed, but he's hiding it for the sake of the many people in his living room. It helps that Bonnie is simply sleeping and not working her way through a trance. It makes it easier to stand alongside her bed with Jeremy, too.

"You okay?" Tyler asks him. He's been quiet ever since they got back.

"You told me I shouldn't have killed Kol."

Tyler did tell him that.

"Can't undo it now," he says. "It is what it is." Kol is dead. His line is dead. Ramona and her coven are dead. It all could have been avoided if Kol was alive, but Kol isn't alive. It happened. "They would have killed you and Elena," Tyler reminds him.

"Because we killed their friends, their family," Jeremy says. "Pretty justified, don't you think?"

"Sure," Tyler says. "We killed Stefan and Damon, didn't we? But just because they have reasons doesn't mean you should let them kill you. We defended ourselves tonight. We had to."

He thinks he can see Jeremy trying to convince himself of that.

* * *

It's the second time Bonnie's awoken in the dark of her bedroom in a silent house. She she rolls onto her other side, startling when she sees Shane sitting on the edge of the bed. Because she distinctly recalls Shane going up in flames she knows this is Silas. "What?" She sits up to lean against her headboard.

"My triangle's complete."

"Congratulations."

"I should be issuing congratulations to you," Silas says. "You survived."

"Despite your push for the opposite."

"I don't want your life," he says. "I want your magic. We don't need to have a repeat of tonight's events if you promise to help me."

"I already promised to help you." She's careful not to get too loud. She doesn't need anyone coming to investigate the source of her indignation. "You're the one who turned on me. That's your problem, isn't it? Power hungry. I was willing to help you, and that wasn't good enough. Your mistake."

"I am willing," Silas says calmly, "to uphold our bargain." He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. He holds the tiny stone vial up to her face. "Your cure. And it _is_ yours, right now, if you swear to assist me in opening the veil."

"How do I know that's the real cure?"

Silas looks annoyed. "It's the real thing, I assure you."

"How do _you_ know I won't just use it on you?"

That makes him smile. "You and your partners have a different target you'd like to use this on. Have you trained your scope on me now?"

"You did try to kill me tonight."

"One transgression and you write me off completely," he says. "How many times has Klaus come for you or one of your loved ones? Tonight can be the first and the last time I ever threaten your life." He peers at her closely. "You're wondering how hard it would be to kill me. You can make me mortal with that cure, yes, but it won't end my life. Even weaker than I'd like to be, I can still hold my own. Killing me won't be easy, and what if I see you coming? What if I kill you first?"

Bonnie swallows.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to give me what I want? Open the veil with me, let me give the dead life, and then we never have to see each other again." He extends the cure to her. "You're going to have a hard enough time with the Original hybrid. Don't make your life _to_o difficult, not when it's already hell. Take the cure, Bonnie. Give yourself a reward for all your hard work. Graduate with your friends, allow Tyler to bring his mother home. Be happy."

Bonnie looks at Shane's face and imagines that it was Silas who died tonight instead. The thought makes him grin. When she snatches the cure from his hand, he laughs. "A wise choice." Still, he doesn't leave. "Do you know what the name Ramona means?"

"I don't care."

"Protecting hands."

_Neither circle is safe._

"You have a beautiful mind, Bonnie," he says. "I thought I would tie up that little end for you, in gratitude."

Bonnie looks down at the cure as Silas stands. "Goodnight. Your prom is approaching, isn't it? Silly thing, if you ask me."

"I didn't."

"You remind me so much of Qetsiyah," he says, smiling. "Enjoy your dance." She watches him disappear from her room, leaving nothing to denote that he was ever there except for the vial in her hand.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing. Next chapter we hop forward a few days to prom. **


	32. Prom Night

Prom Night

Bonnie is dressed and has been for awhile. The only reason she's still sitting in her room is because of the cure she keeps picking up and putting down and picking up again.

"At least we have it," Jeremy had said when she and Tyler turned up in his bedroom again. He took it better than last time. There was less shock involved. "I don't think we should use it yet."

"No, we shouldn't," Tyler agreed. "We should deal with Silas first, make sure he's out of our lives for good." He'd looked so longingly at the vial enclosed in Bonnie's fist. They'd been waiting for this for so long, had to jump through this many hoops to get it. It's practically screaming Klaus' name. "We've gotta be smart about it."

Bonnie had agreed, and Jeremy and Tyler had decided she should keep the cure at her house, where it was safest. She doesn't know how safe it is if Silas can come in whenever he wants and watch her sleep, but he can do worse harm to Jeremy and Tyler. If he decides to take the cure back, Bonnie will have a better shot of hanging onto it.

"Bonnie, are you dressed yet? Your dad wants to get a few pictures," Lucy says, poking her head in. "You _are_ dressed. What's the hold up?" She lowers her gaze to the vial in Bonnie's hand and sighs. "Looking for somewhere to put it?"

"No," Bonnie says. "I know where I'm going to put it." She holds it out to Lucy. "Just while I'm at the dance." She'd take it with her if she wasn't worried about losing it among the rest of the senior class, and it's just as safe with Lucy as it would be with Bonnie.

Lucy takes it. "Sure."

"Thanks."

"So, are you ready?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "How do I look?"

Lucy reaches to adjust one of Bonnie's curls. "Beautiful."

They're supposed to take pictures at Caroline's, but that doesn't deter Rudy from positioning Bonnie throughout the house to snap pictures of her. Him and Bonnie, Bonnie and Abby, Bonnie and Lucy, Bonnie with Abby _and_ Lucy, Bonnie with Rudy _and_ Abby. When Tyler arrives (looking even better in his tux than Bonnie had expected) Rudy seems less enthusiastic about the picture taking, but Lucy makes up where he falls short. She gets one of Tyler sliding the corsage onto her wrist, Bonnie pinning his to his jacket, one on the stairs, one in the backyard, both of them with Abby, both of them with Lucy. Rudy promises to have the pictures printed before he leaves for Philadelphia.

"It's only for a little while," he promises. "I'll be back before graduation."

Bonnie tries not to be too enthusiastic. There's no reason for it anyway. Rudy's asked Abby to stick around to keep an eye on her which means Tyler is still probably banned and inviting Jeremy over is absolutely out of the question because then they'll know she's seeing them both. There isn't a conversation Bonnie would like to have less than that one.

Tyler slides his arm into hers and guides her out the door. She stops short on the porch, her eyes growing wide at the limo - clichéd in its black stretchiness - parked in front of her house. Tyler laughs. "I figured we'd go all out. It's prom, right? It's on me," he adds.

"I didn't peg you for the sentimental, get-a-limo-for-prom-type," Bonnie says, letting him pull her with him down the steps. It seems like such a Caroline thing to do. She's going to freak when she sees it.

"I have my moments."

The ride to Caroline's house takes barely three minutes, but Bonnie kisses Tyler the whole way, their fingers locked together. She's so excited, and she doesn't know why. It's tradition that these things are only good for the first hour or so. After that, there's just punch and chaperones and the desire to leave. There's the after party to consider, which is bound to be better if it's a Caroline Forbes event and taking place at the Lockwood place.

If they can just get through this night without Silas doing anything.

Bonnie's unsure of when he plans to lower the veil, when he'll summon her to help. He knows her prom is tonight, and even though it's silly to him, maybe he'll leave her be for the dance? Hopefully.

Caroline is predictably thrilled to see the limo. It distracts her momentarily from her anxious phone calls with Maddie Fell, but then she's right back to it. Bonnie can tell she's annoyed because she keeps smoothing down the already smoothed skirt of her beaded white gown. Sheriff Forbes tries again and again to rally her for pictures and eventually gives up and snaps some of Elena and Jeremy instead.

"You look beautiful," Jeremy says once he's broken away from Elena to allow Sheriff Forbes to take some photos of her by herself.

"Thanks." She reaches to adjust his tie. "You look very handsome."

"That was the idea." He glances over his shoulder to Elena who is holding out the wide skirt of her floral dress, twirling while Sheriff Forbes takes her picture. "We didn't get to take very many at home. No together anyway. It was kind of hard with just the two of us."

Bonnie takes his hand in hers and gives it what she hopes is a comforting squeeze. It must have sufficed because Jeremy smiles.

"Okay, I'm ready," Caroline says finally to the amused annoyance of her mother. The rest of them hang back to watch Caroline and Matt pose for pictures together. Then come group photos. While Caroline and Elena are posing by the stairs, Jeremy grabs Matt so he can take pictures of Tyler, Bonnie and Jeremy then Jeremy and Bonnie then Jeremy and Tyler then Tyler and Jeremy and Matt.

It goes on like this for a long time, all of them laughing over photos, retaking ones that look bad until Caroline impatiently tells them to get a move on, but they're stalled again by more photos by the limo. They're taking so long Bonnie's sure Caroline probably hates them more than she hates Maddie Fell.

* * *

Caroline points everything out to them when they arrive as if they can't see it: the strands of twinkling lights that crisscross the ceiling, the flower arrangements of white and purple roses that she managed to convince Maddie not to screw up completely. Jeremy spaces out around the time she points to the photo booth in the corner and the professional setup on the other side.

Elena notices. "Come on," she says. "We'll find the table. Then we'll dance."

He wonders if she's thinking about Stefan and Damon. If they were alive, she'd be here with one of them. He can't tell what she's thinking, and decides it's better not to ask. They've been working lately, but mentioning Stefan or Damon may ruin everything about this already pretty good night.

"Thanks for bringing me," he says as she leaves her purse at their table, number 33.

Elena shrugs. "Thanks for coming with me."

"Do you want to dance?" Jeremy asks.

"It's usually me asking you," she says.

He shrugs. "It's your prom. I figure since you asked me to come, I could at least ask you to dance."

Elena smiles as he offers his hand. "Well, thank you."

There are a few other couples dancing already. No one pays them that much attention when they join. No one even seems to think it's weird that he's here. Maybe they all just feel bad for them, being as alone as they are.

"I don't see Rebekah," Elena says.

"I keep forgetting she goes here." Rebekah's at school even less than they are.

Elena laughs. "Pretty sure. I guess she's sitting it out."

Jeremy doesn't know why she'd come anyway. How good of a prom could it be if she was stuck here with people who hate her? People she hates?

"I was thinking," Elena says, "we could leave town for the summer."

"And go where?"

"We could go to Denver," she says. "I bet Lynn and Steve would let us stay for a week or two. I just think we should get away from here for awhile. It might be good for us."

Denver wasn't so bad. It might be nice to go back, get a break from this place. "Okay."

* * *

It all goes so quickly. They dance, they eat, they dance again. They take pictures at the photo booth and then return to the dance floor, switching partners throughout. Jeremy ends up dancing with Caroline as Maddie Fell steps onto the stage in very, very yellow dress.

Jeremy sees Caroline scrunch up her nose in disapproval which makes Bonnie reach across where she's dancing with Tyler to nudge her arm. "I just can't wait until I never have to see her again," Caroline says.

"It's time to announce our prom king and queen," Maddie says excitedly, shifting a giant white envelope from one hand to the other. "Congratulations to Matt Donovan and Bonnie Bennett!"

When Jeremy's eyes cut to Bonnie she's standing totally still, her mouth hanging open. "I didn't...I didn't know I was nominated." They've been so busy with other things, it's no wonder she missed it.

Tyler shrugs. "I voted for you."

Matt appears, breaking away from a clapping Elena to offer his arm to Bonnie. "My queen," he says.

Bonnie smiles nervously as she takes his arm, letting him pull her toward the stage.

* * *

At Tyler's house, Bonnie's and Matt's crowns are being passed around. They left once Bonnie and Matt were done with their pictures. It didn't take long for the rest of the senior class to get the memo and show up at Tyler's still in their prom finery.

When they're all done being ridiculous, Bonnie leaves her tiara with Caroline, adjusting Matt's crown on Elena's head, so she can follow Tyler up to his room when he asks. She hikes up the skirt of her dress so she can cross her legs and sit on his bed.

"So," he says.

"So?"

"I wanted to ask you," he begins, "if you want to come to California with me. You got into Berkeley. I got into Berkeley," he says. "We can - I don't know - we can get an apartment close to campus. We've lived together before. You're not a bad roommate." She laughs. "It'll be fun. We can go to the beach and swim and I don't know, do other stuff - _normal _stuff."

"I don't mind not being normal so much anymore," Bonnie says. "It's kinda fun sometimes."

"Then we can do _not _normal stuff," he says. "I'm sure there are some witch type things there. I don't know what I'll do, but I'll find something."

"You don't need to convince me. I want to go." She holds out her hands and he takes them, letting her pull him closer so he can bend down and kiss her. "We _are_ going to have to convince my dad though. He's not going to be okay with me living with you." She sighs wistfully. "It would be wrong to compel him."

So wrong, but so easy.

Tyler laughs. "Probably."

"I'll figure something out," she says. She can ask Abby and Lucy for help in convincing him. Well, maybe just Lucy.

"If you explain to him that you'll be staying with me all the time anyway," he says, "and point out how ridiculous it would to be to pay room and board considering you'd never be in your room anyway, maybe he'd get on board. Parents love saving money even if it means their daughters are having sex with me every-" he punctuates it with a kiss, "single" and another "night" and one more.

"_Really_?"

"I'm a hybrid, you're a witch. We _have_ the stamina."

Bonnie laughs as he kisses her again. They break apart as someone knocks on the door. Jeremy pokes his head in. "Caroline's looking for you, Ty. I think something got broken."

Tyler rolls his eyes and groans heavily as he goes to see what happened. Jeremy takes a step further into the room. "Hey, prom queen."

"Hey." She pats the space next to her on the bed, and Jeremy closes the door before he joins her. "How was your night?"

"It was pretty good," he says.

"How's Elena?"

"Also pretty good. We're going to Denver for a couple weeks after graduation."

"Me and Tyler are going to California," she says. "Berkeley."

"I figured."

"I'm gonna miss you."

Jeremy makes a face. "You're not gone yet. We'll still see each other. I'll visit, you'll visit. We'll all visit."

"I'm still gonna miss you."

Jeremy sighs down at the floor. "I'm gonna miss you, too."

"What are we gonna do?" she asks. She knows he'll understand what she means.

"I don't know," he says. That makes two of them. "You'll be with Tyler. I'll be here. We can just...see where it goes, see what happens." He leans to kiss her forehead. "I'm always gonna love you, Bonnie."

"I'm not gone yet," she says with a smile. She tugs on the front of his shirt so he leans to cover her mouth with his.

"Think Tyler will mind if we have sex in his bed?" he asks.

"I don't know," Bonnie says. "Could go either way, I guess." She pulls him in to kiss her again. His lips are ghosting across her neck when she feels it. A tugging in her chest. She tries to ignore it, writes it off as Jeremy and his kisses, but it becomes persistent, tugging so hard she gasps.

Jeremy pulls away from her immediately. It must not have sounded like a good gasp. "You okay?"

Bonnie feels her chest. The tugging has lessened slightly. "Silas."

* * *

Lucy is asleep on the couch when Bonnie comes in. Once she changes out of her dress and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, she wakes Lucy as gently as she can. "The cure," she says. "I need it."

"Shouldn't you be behaving badly with your friends right now?" Lucy asks groggily.

"Yeah," Bonnie sighs, "but duty calls."

Lucy sits up. When she holds her hand out, she opens and closes her fist. One minute her palm is empty and the next the stone vial sits primly in her hand. Bonnie takes it. "Thanks. Just in case."

"Be careful," Lucy says. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No," she says. "Jeremy and Tyler are going with me. We'll be fine. Go back to sleep. I won't be gone long."

Lucy nods her head reluctantly.

* * *

Silas is at the school. Bonnie doesn't know why, but that's where he is, standing in the basement where his summons leads her. He's wearing Shane's face again. "Took you long enough," he says, not facing her. She's never been down here before. As far as she knew, this place didn't even have a basement. But here it is and it's just as gross as one would expect. She tries not to look too intently at the floor in case a bug is hanging out down there. "But I'm glad you came."

"I said I would," she says. "Why are we down here?"

"It's good placement," Silas says. "Good enough to draw the energies of the three sacrifices. It's as close to the center of the three as I could get, and this is as close to the earth as we could get." When he turns around, he flashes her a smile. "You had a good time tonight, _Queen _Bonnie."

It would be nice if he would stop invading her mind every time they meet. He holds something out to her, her bracelet. She snatches it from him. "It's how I summoned you," he says. "I have no more use for it."

Bonnie isn't about to thank him for returning what he stole. He's not concerned with it anyway.

"You didn't come alone," he says.

"No," she says. "Tyler and Jeremy are upstairs."

"That is not unexpected."

"How does this work?" Bonnie asks impatiently. She just wants to get it over with.

"First, we make a tear in the veil," Silas says. "The dead will walk. I'll need to find someone special to me."

"The woman Qetsiyah killed?"

"Yes. She is my first priority."

Bonnie wonders if Aja and her coven knew that. Silas won't bring anyone back first unless it's _her_, this specter of a woman he loved and lost. If he can't find her, will he bring back anyone? Of course he will. He's Silas. He wants his army, his loyal followers. They are right beyond the veil.

"How will we raise them permanently?" Bonnie asks. "You'll have to close the veil eventually."

"You don't need to concern yourself with that," Silas assures her. "I'll be able to do that on my own."

"How?"

"The dead will help me," Silas says.

Bonnie lifts an eyebrow, but he doesn't seem to notice. If he does, he doesn't care. "How many will come?" she asks.

"However many feel drawn here," he says. "Those with business to handle, scores to settle, the like. They may choose not to cross over."

"They have a choice?"

"Yes," Silas says, extending a hand. "Are you ready?"

Reluctantly she accepts his hand. "Yeah."

* * *

Tyler glances around the dark halls, the glowing red EXIT sign, the lines of lockers. Soon he'll never have to see this place again. Soon he'll be in California with Bonnie.

A door opens and closes. Tyler straightens up, straining to hear. The school is quiet, except for that one noise. He tries to hear it again.

"What?" Jeremy asks.

"I heard something," he answers. "Someone's here."

There aren't many people who would come into the school after hours. No students, that's for sure, not on prom night when they should all be getting heavily inebriated and falling into bed with friends. Someone of the administration perhaps, but they wouldn't be taking such care to remain quiet.

"We should-" Tyler begins.

He feels the wind at his side before he realizes what's happening. Jeremy cries out, but by the time Tyler's turned, he's gone. He curses before he follows the sound of doors slamming shut, bursting through them and out onto the parking lot and across the football field. Jeremy's not going quietly, wherever it is he's being taken.

The bordering trees most likely.

Tyler keeps pace. He'll catch up.

Or at least he would have if not for someone tackling him to the ground. He's reminded of football. He's forgotten what it feels like to take a hit. But he briefly remembers a time when he did. A spectacular tackle from the opposing team, but one that would alarm the crowd, but especially Tyler's mom. He barely feels it.

"This is the one we died to save?" a woman snarls. She has a cloud of dark hair and small eyes that glare at him. Tyler hears her fangs extending and the uptick of her heartbeat. She's bloodthirsty. She looks pretty alive to Tyler.

"Yep." It's a man who responds, stepping closer. He's the one who tackled him.

But they aren't the only ones. A quick count later and Tyler knows there are fourteen of them. There are too many. His best bet is to run but they're surrounding him on all sides. He's a hybrid and he's strong, but he's young. Some of these vampires have to outweigh him in years. Even as a hybrid, he won't be able to do this alone.

"Who are you?" Tyler questions.

"I'm Luke," the vampire says. "This is Val. These are our friends. We met them when we died."

Tyler must look confused. He _is _confused.

"Kol Mikaelson sired us," Val hisses.

_Oh_.

The veil is down. _Shit, shit, shit_. They really should have prepared for this.

He looks to the school where Bonnie is, to the trees where Jeremy has disappeared. Bonnie might come, if she's not occupied with other things, but he can't depend on that.

No one's coming for him.

"Listen," Tyler says. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to die. I didn't. I feel...terrible. I-"

"Don't worry, hybrid," Luke says. "We'll kill the real people responsible, but since you're here why not start with you?"

So they didn't take Jeremy. But if they didn't, who did?

"Where's Kol?" Tyler demands. If he took Jeremy...

"He's around," Val says.

"We'll make somewhat quick for you," Luke says, "considering you _feel bad_."

At the very least, Tyler will kill Luke. Again. If he can bite them all, what will that do? Will they succumb to the bite before they get to go after Bonnie and Jeremy? What happens when the dead die?

Fangs bared, Tyler launches himself at him and feels strong hands gripping his shoulders. He lands a punch to his face then feels the others around him, yanking at him. When his shoulder is pulled from its socket he lets out a howl of pain before he finds himself staring up at the dark sky, hearing the coming footsteps of the vampires around him.

Val's face swims above him. She's grinning. Then there's a hand through her chest and she crumples to the ground when it's withdrawn.

Kim stands in her place.

Tyler blinks as he sits up. It takes him a moment to realize the vampires are dropping, one by one until all that's left are their bodies and the people who killed them.

The hybrids, his pack.

Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. And Kim.

* * *

"It's down," Bonnie says. She can feel it, almost see it. The air seems to have shifted somehow, like it's been electrified in a way that it wasn't before.

Silas nods, turning around to face her. "It is. Thank you, Bonnie." He inclines his head in something that may be gratitude. A slow smile spreads across his face. "Well, this will be interesting for all of us, won't it?"

"What do you-"

But Silas disappears, and Bonnie gapes at the space he once occupied.

"You."

Unless Silas decided to change his appearance again, that's definitely not him. She turns to the voice anyway.

The man behind her is tall and broad shouldered with a beard that is in dire need of a trim. Of course he won't be getting one. Dead people don't keep up with grooming habits. "Do you recognize me?" he asks.

"Yes." He looks as he did the night she killed him, when she exchanged his life for Tyler's. The same dark jacket, faded jeans, the scuffed boots. She even thinks she can feel the same waves of violence. There's perverse cruelty. Rage blooms like a flower in her chest.

"You _killed _me."

"You deserved it," Bonnie snaps. "The best thing you'd ever done was die so my friend could live. I'd kill you again." If she has to, she will. It would be better for him to fade back into the ether, find a bar in hell where he can rot for eternity.

"You didn't even know my name."

"Didn't want to," she says. "Didn't need to."

"My name-"

Bonnie breaks his neck with a flick of her wrist. His body remains, even though she expects it to disappear. With a sigh, she turns toward the exit. She should warn Jeremy and Tyler about these dead visitors.

Bonnie sees the emerald gleam before she sees a face. She sees it in front of her then she sees it in her memory, a shock of color against the dark of the woods, black curls against a green dress and pale skin. When she looks at April, she swallows hard. There is no sign of the angry bite mark on her neck or the blood that spilled from her throat. She looks just as alive and healthy as Bonnie imagines she looked that night.

The breath Bonnie draws is shaky. There's someone standing at April's side. She looks different now that she's in the dark, without the glare of headlamps on her face, but Jenny Lowman's blond hair still shines.

* * *

Jeremy is dropped unceremoniously onto the ground where he rolls to his feet, yanking his stake free. He turns to see who carried him here, some vampire who's going to catch that same stake to the heart, but he pauses.

Her hair hangs straight and long, so dark it seems to blend in with the woods. It would be hard to tell where it ended if not for the glow of her purple jacket which she shrugs off. She tosses it onto the ground.

"Elena?"

She looks at him, cocking her head to the side. She shakes her head, smiles a cold smile. "Try again, Little Gilbert. "

It's the way she speaks, her words moving ina slow drawl, her words coming from her throat.

"Katherine."

"Remember that time you killed me?" she says.

He does.

"As much as I'd love to tear you limb from limb _slowly,_ we don't have the time for that. You've got a whole sired line out for your blood. I just so happened to beat them here. So we'll have to make this quick or else I won't get any of my punches in. I won't even get to break your bones myself."

"You've got your work cut out for you," he says. "I'll kill you all over again."

Not that he thinks about it that one may not have been as purposeful as his more recent killings. More of the stake's pointy end finding its way into a vulnerable chest. But he's racked up quite the body count since. He can kill Katherine.

Jeremy's ready for her when she comes at him. He shrugs off her grasping hands. He has to keep his distance, at least until he's sure he can stake her. If he lingers she could snap his neck easily and once his neck is snapped, he won't be able to keep her from taking his ring. When she lunges for his neck, he stabs at her ribcage with the stake. It's not the heart, but it still makes her bleed and makes her stagger away from him.

Now she's even angrier.

Katherine turns just in time to catch hold of a dark haired blur that launches itself at her. At first Jeremy thinks it must be Tyler, but this shape is much smaller, the hair way longer. He realizes it's Elena when Katherine throws her to the ground. She rolls out of the way just before Katherine brings down her booted foot on the place where Elena's throat used to be.

Elena comes to Jeremy's side. He doesn't know how she knew to find him here, but he's not angry about it. They took out an Original together. Katherine will be easy in comparison.

"A matching set," she comments.

"I'm gonna kill you," Elena says.

Katherine just looks amused. "Already dead, cupcake." Her head turns in the other direction as if she's been called. Elena's too. Something in the distance, something Jeremy can't see.

"Jer, run!" She doesn't wait for him to do so. Instead she lifts him just as easily as Katherine did before, moving them both through the dark. He can't see, can barely breathe because everything's going so fast.

Then he feels himself flying through the air until he hits the ground. The woods seem to be spinning a little. They become still when the vampire comes to hover over Jeremy's face, fanged out and veiny. He lunges for Jeremy's throat, but someone grabs him and twists his neck around.

Elena. _No_. Katherine. "This party's getting crowded," she says, "but you're mine."

Jeremy curses mentally and scrambles away from her, feeling along the ground for the stake. Where is it? Where did it go? He _just_ had it. His fingers close around something else, thinner and cool to the touch. His gun. He doesn't know how it got all the way over there, but as long as it's there. He gets his fingers around it, lifts it to shoot, but Katherine is on him, wrenching it from his hand and tossing it away.

She looks satisfied as her fangs slide into view and veins spread beneath her eyes.

Katherine comes for his throat with a low hiss then Jeremy sees where his stake went. The pointed end comes through her chest, straight through the heart so the point pokes through the other side. The stake disappears, wrenched from Katherine's body with a wet, squelching sound. She falls to the ground, dying all over again, and Elena stands over them both.

"Are you okay?" she says, extending her hand to Jeremy.

He nods as he reaches up to take it, but Elena is thrown away from him, as easily as if she weighs nothing. Her hair ripples in the wind as she strikes the trunk of one of the trees. He doesn't know if the sharp cracking sound is the trunk or her back.

There's another vampire in front of him who he vaguely recalls. From an alley somewhere, with Bonnie and Tyler. He'd been a hard one to kill.

Jeremy doesn't waste time. He lunges in the direction Katherine threw his gun, his hand closing around it just as a vampire grips his ankle to wrench him back. Rolling onto his back, he fires twice into the vampire's chest. He tries to aim for the heart, but it's hard to be sure that's where the bullet's going when you're being pulled through the dark.

It must have hit its mark because the grip on Jeremy's ankle goes slack. When he scrambles to his feet, he sees a vampire looming over Elena. She's on the ground, barely moving. She kicks feebly as the vampire, just as big as the other one though Jeremy has no idea if this is one of Kol's or one of the Alley vampires. It doesn't matter. He's lifting Elena by the front of her shirt so her feet hover over the ground.

Jeremy aims the gun at his back, but his shot is blocked by a new vampire, speeding forward to thrust an arm into the other's chest. He tosses the heart he pulls out onto the ground and bends to help a dropped Elena to her feet.

Jeremy recognizes the frame, the dark hair, the stance, but he doesn't really believe it until Damon turns to face him. "Jeremy," he says. "Long time no see."

Welcome to Mystic Falls, the dead are walking.

* * *

**The next three chapters are single POV - all the events that take place will be happening at the same time across all three chapters. First up is Tyler's. Thanks for reading and reviewing! **


	33. Species Which Exhibits Pack Behavior

Species Which Exhibits Pack Behavior

Kim reaches out to haul Tyler to his feet. Her hands are just as solid as Val's and Luke's had been. Her touch is a lot gentler but firm enough to get him standing. He knows ghosts feel this way. Luke and Val certainly did, but it's still strange to touch her and have her be real.

"You're here," is all he can think to say.

"You needed our help," Kim says. "We came."

Tyler looks at all of them, forming a ring around him. They're all so alive. "I can't believe you're here. I...Jeremy!"

Where's Jeremy?

"Help me find him?"

He doesn't need to ask twice. They speed through the trees to stop in the dark of the woods. Tyler tries to catch Jeremy's scent, but it's overrun with others. Vampires, a lot of them, came through here recently. He can't tell if they were the ones who ambushed him on the field and are now dead or if these are different vampires who may still be alive. Calling Jeremy's name yields no results.

Tyler tries calling his phone, and hears the ringing. He doesn't know if he's relieved or not when he finds the phone lying in the dirt. It's not lying with Jeremy's dead body so there's a plus, but Jeremy's not here and Tyler has no idea where he is. That's a big, big negative.

Tyler tries Bonnie next, but she doesn't answer until the third call. "Are you okay?" he asks instantly.

"I'm fine," she says. Her voice sounds strange. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the woods," he says. "Someone took Jeremy. I don't know who."

"We have to find him," she says. "The veil's down. It could have been _anyone_. This town is crawling with dead people."

"I noticed," he says. "It was kind of obvious once my pack showed up."

They stand, looking at him expectantly. Even though their attention is focused on him, he can tell they're thinking of the woods, of the dark that looms all around them, the things it could be hiding. This is the safest Tyler's ever felt in these woods, surrounded by his friends. They're gonna be fine despite the fact the town looks more like a horror movie than usual.

Jeremy on the other hand...

"Can you do a locater spell?" Tyler asks.

"Stay on the phone," Bonnie says. "I'll do it now."

Tyler's phone beeps. "Elena's calling me. Hold on."

Bonnie must already be working on her spell because she doesn't respond before he switches over. "Elena?"

"It's me," Jeremy says.

Relief floods Tyler's body. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jeremy says, though he doesn't necessarily sound happy about it. "Katherine grabbed me then there were vampires. Kol's line, some from the alley, _Damon_."

_"Damon_?"

Of course Damon's here. Stefan's probably here, too.

"Yeah, Damon," Jeremy says. "Stefan's probably here, too, but we haven't seen him yet."

"Did Damon try something?"

"No," Jeremy says. "I'm sure he will. He's with Elena right now so he's on his best behavior, but I've got my stake and lots of other stuff. There were some more vampires, but we're all alive. I was kind of hoping one of them would take Damon out, but no such luck. I can't kill him myself with Elena here. She's probably going to be offended all over again."

"Probably," Tyler agrees. "Be careful."

"Yeah, yeah," Jeremy sighs. "There are so many people who want to kill me, but I'm okay. I lost my phone so I couldn't call you."

"I've got your phone."

"Good," he says, sounding genuinely happy about that. "I can't afford a new one. Where's Bonnie?"

"Still at the school," Tyler says. "I think she's okay. Some of Kol's line were here. They almost ripped me apart, but my pack came through."

Kim takes a break from her chat with Cora to look in Tyler's direction and smile.

"You're with the pack?" Jeremy says. "Your ghosts are definitely better than mine."

"Jeremy!" Elena, panicked. There are voices, the sounds of glass breaking, Damon cursing.

"Jeremy?"

"We've got it," Jeremy assures him.

"I can help you!"

"_We've got it_."

Tyler sighs heavily. "Look out for Kol."

"Believe me, I'm looking out."

He hangs up, and Tyler's back on the line with Bonnie. "Jeremy's fine," he says. "He's with Elena. And Damon."

Bonnie makes a disgusted sound when he says Damon's name, and Tyler smiles. "Are you okay?" he asks. "Where's Silas?"

"I'm fine," she says. "Silas is gone, I don't know where. I think he's off looking for his girlfriend. April and Jenny Lowman were here."

"Are they still there?"

"They're gone."

She sounds strange when she says it, but he doesn't comment. "There are probably thousands of vampires here, and they're all trying to kill _us_," he says. "Do dead vampires still feed? If they do, this town is one hell of a buffet."

"Can you and the pack try to stop some of them?"

"Hell yeah we can," Bryant says. Tyler gives him a pointed look, and he shrugs his shoulders. The rest of the pack has perked up, and Tyler finds himself smiling a little. It's been so long since he's seen them.

"We can try," he says, "but we're not gonna be able to stop them all."

"You just need to do enough until I get the veil closed again," Bonnie says, "until Silas finishes what he needs done. Just be really careful, okay? I have to go now."

"You have to go?" Tyler asks. "You don't want to come with us?"

"I have things to do here," Bonnie says. "I have ghosts of my own to deal with. Handle the vampires, I'll find you when I can."

"Bonnie-"

"Bye."

Tyler looks down at his phone, at the flashing CALL ENDED notification. Adrian calls to him. "You heard what she said. Let's go kick some ass."

Kim shoots Adrian a withering look, and fixes Tyler with a gentler one. "What do you want to do?" she asks. "You're the Alpha, it's your call."

"I'm not your Alpha anymore," Tyler says. He stopped being their Alpha when they died. "You don't _have _to do anything. If you don't want to, you don't have to, but if you do, I'd be grateful for the help. I _am_ grateful for your help."

Kim rolls her eyes. "We didn't come back here just to say hi," she says. "We came because you needed us. You're our Alpha and our _friend_. We'll help you do whatever you have to do."

He remembers finding her body in the cellar, her heart not too far away. The memory makes his chest hurt.

"We saw you die, too, you know," Kim says, nodding down to the shell bracelet. "I'm glad you made it. We didn't want that for you. It's good that someone was protecting you."

Tyler covers the bracelet with his hand. He was the only one who had one, the rest of them could only die that night, with Klaus in the cellar while Tyler got to live. "I should have protected you," he says. "I was your Alpha, that was my job."

"You _are_ our Alpha," Kim corrects. "And you did protect us, as well as you could."

"If I had told you about Damon, what we were doing-"

"It wouldn't have changed anything," Steven says, sounding impatient. "Klaus killed us. We didn't stand a chance. Neither did you. He was going to kill us whenever he found out about us breaking our bonds."

"He wouldn't have found out if Stefan didn't tell him."

"Stefan got his," Lana says, brushing her curls away from her face. "One day Klaus will, too. We don't blame you so don't do this thing you're doing where you make it all your fault. It wasn't. Let us help. We've been dead for months. You owe us the chance to kick some vampire ass."

He's been kicking vampire ass for months now. It'll be nice to do it with the pack just this once.

* * *

They start at his house. The after party has ended, but Tyler doesn't know if that's because everyone calmly, albeit drunkenly, decided to depart, or if something drove them out, like raging dead vampires. He gets his answer when he enters the living room full of overturned furniture and smashed glass. Caroline, now in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, is cleaning up. He doesn't know where she found clothes, but then he remembers some of her stuff was still here. She looks relieved to see him.

"Vampires," she says, throwing up her arms. "They came right in!"

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Well there were only two of them," Caroline says. "Elena and I took care of it. We healed the people we could, compelled them. The others just kind of...ran. Have you seen her? She took off looking for Jeremy."

"She found him," Tyler says. "They're fine. Where's Matt?"

"Taking a pee break," Caroline says, sounding annoyed. "We didn't know where you guys went, and I have no idea where my phone went or I would have called you sooner."

Kim comes from the kitchen with a blood bag, sucking it down. So they _do_ need to feed. That's not good.

"Kim?" Caroline says. "You're alive?"

Kim raises her hand in a wave. "For now."

"The veil is down," Tyler explains. "So there are a lot of dead people running around. Kol's line. Some others."

Caroline's eyes grow wide. "That's _really, really _bad. I have to tell my mom."

Tyler passes her his phone and turns back to Kim. The rest of the pack is coming from the kitchen as well, each with their own blood bag except Adrian and Sabrina who are sharing one. "We can just head to the center of town, work our way out," Tyler says. "If the vampires aren't trying to find me, Bonnie and Jeremy, they're probably going to be looking for food."

"My mom says they got a call about vampires at the hospital, draining patients, blood bags," Caroline says, the phone still at her ear. "They're not even being discreet."

Discretion is for the living.

"What's going on?" Matt questions, appearing in the doorway.

"Dead vampires," Caroline says impatiently. "We have to get you out of here. If they get to you, they'll eat you."

"What else is new?" Matt says tiredly.

Caroline lets out a frustrated sigh. "We're coming to meet you, Mom. We'll help."

* * *

It's late so most of town is dead anyway. Or it should be. The people walking the streets aren't human, that's for sure. Vampires upon vampires upon vampires. They walk together up and down the streets, for a moment not acknowledging any of them. If any of them are from the Alleys, they haven't recognized Tyler yet, and he keeps his head down in the hopes of keeping it that way. Maybe the vampires think all of them are resurrected, too, but that line of thinking will only protect them for so long. Once they start killing them, it'll become pretty obvious they're not on the same side.

Adrian lets out a long whistle. "You were busy, Ty. Hell of a body count."

"We're still busy," Tyler says. "We have to make sure they don't hurt anyone."

A car rolls up behind them. It's Bonnie's, but Bonnie's not driving. Abby's in the passenger seat, and Lucy's at the wheel. She pokes her head out the window. "You're blocking the street."

"Where are you going?" Tyler questions.

"We're meeting Bonnie."

"Is she okay?" Caroline asks, in her worried voice.

"If she needed help, she could have told me," Tyler says. "I would have-"

"Bonnie's fine," Lucy says, holding up a hand. "It's witch business anyway. This is your business."

"There are hundreds of vampires here," Tyler says. "There's only so much we can do."

"Do what you can," Abby says. "We'll - _They'll_ - handle the rest."

Lucy smiles. "What she said. Good luck, kid." As she presses down on the gas, taking off down the street. The vampires don't react to the car at all. Lucy must have done something.

"My mom's at the Grill," Caroline says, "with what's left of the Council and her deputies. We can go there, help with whatever plan they have."

Tyler doesn't know where to start otherwise. Just pick a vampire and kill it? "Sounds good."

* * *

The Grill is dark when they arrive, but Sheriff Forbes is holding court at the back out of sight of the windows. Town maps are spread out over the pool tables to be examined in the beams of flashlights. There's a man leaning over the Sheriff's shoulder, pointing something out. He looks familiar, but it takes Tyler a moment to recognize him in the dark. It's not until Caroline speaks that he does.

"Daddy?"

Caroline steps forward, looking at him like she doesn't quite believe it. It takes her a while to hug him, but she does. Tyler can see her hands shaking. Her mom looks warily in their direction but seems to relax because she's back to pointing something out to the deputy at her side.

"You're here," Caroline says.

"When I realized there were hundreds of vampires converging on Mystic Falls," Bill says, "I thought I'd help. And I wanted to see you. Did you have fun at your dance?"

Caroline nods. "Maddie Fell tried really hard to ruin it, but I stopped her."

The hybrids spread out, peeking out through the windows to look for any approaching vampires. Casey slumps in one of the booths to prop up her feet. When she sees Tyler looking at her she smirks and raises her shoulders into a shrug as if she's saying _I'll get up when something happens_.

That works for him.

"Tyler," Bill says, drawing his attention.

Caroline slips away to go to her mom as he extends a hand to Tyler which he hurries to shake, remembering the last time he saw Caroline's dad. "You broke your bond," Bill says, sounding impressed. "Good for you."

"Thank you."

He remembers being chained up and breaking his bones in the cellar with Caroline's dad observing and pushing him to do it again and again and again.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you more."

"It's not your fault you died."

Bill cracks a smile. "I guess not."

"Tyler, are you helping us?" Sheriff Forbes questions tersely.

"Yeah, me and my pack."

The Sheriff's gaze flits uneasily toward the hybrids, but she swallows down whatever reservations she has. None of her deputies look comfortable enough to voice any of theirs either. Besides, there are hundreds of vampires in town right now, and some recently resurrected hybrids will be helpful.

"We're doing patrols," the Sheriff says. "Everyone has an assigned sector to monitor. How many of you are there?"

"Thirteen."

"Think that's enough to handle the square?" Bill asks.

"It'll have to be," Liz says, scribbling _HYBRIDS_ on the map, right over the spot where the gazebo is.

Tyler nods. "We've got it."

"Got room for one more?"

Even though Tyler knows there are dead people all over town right now, he's still surprised to see the man who enters the Grill wearing a wide grin, his hands raised in a harmless gesture. Of course the hybrids let him in. He's a werewolf, not a vampire. Even dead, Tyler can smell it on him.

Mason Lockwood, back from the dead and smiling.

* * *

"So who is this?" Jack asks, looking Mason up and down as they walk toward the gazebo.

"My uncle," Tyler says.

"And a werewolf. I remember when we were werewolves," Hope says, her bangs stirred by the wind. She walks a few feet ahead of Tyler, scoping out the area. She's itching for a fight, Tyler can tell, even more than the others. If she sees a single vampire, she'll go for his throat instantly and tear it out with glee.

Tyler hopes she gets a couple good ones in before the night is over.

"I can't believe you're here," Tyler says. "I can't believe any of you are here." The hybrids spread out around them, finding a section of grass to manage, peering at the dark storefronts. The vampires have scattered, but they can't be far.

"Believe it," Mason says. "The last time I came back, I didn't even get to see you. I wanted to fix that this time, see how you were doing for myself, in the flesh."

"I'm okay," Tyler says.

"Glad to hear it."

"Do you see Jules over there?" Tyler asks.

"She's there," Mason says. "She didn't want to come. That's Jules. She doesn't like to cling to the past. We've been dead this long, she thought coming back might set us back. She did want me to tell you that she hopes you and your friends gut Klaus Mikaelson."

Tyler laughs. "That's the plan." There are footsteps from across the square, and they both turn to look. Three vampires.

"Hope!" Chase calls. "Look alive."

Jack and Steven laugh at the joke, but Hope only has eyes for vampires. She launches herself at the one closest to her and shoves him to the ground. Tyler sees a spray of blood before they are blocked from view by Kim and Cora, knocking down the other two. It's barely a fight though the cries of the vampires will probably draw others. When Hope, Kim and Cora step away from the vampires, they're in pieces. In the distance, Tyler sees more approaching.

"Ready?" Mason asks.

Tyler answers by speeding toward one of the vampires, one who might have been in one of those Alleys, and removing his heart in a mess of blood.

* * *

Three waves of dead vampires later, Tyler's phone rings. He breaks away from his fighting pack, going onto the gazebo to answer. "Hey."

"How's it going out there?" Bonnie asks. She sounds better than she did before. Considering their situation, she actually sounds...happy. Tyler's also in a better mood than he probably should be. It's not normal to be enjoying oneself so much, when this town looks like the face of the apocalypse, when his clothes are stained with the blood of more than one vampire. But if anyone understands the bloodlust, it's Bonnie. And Jeremy, wherever he is, doing whatever he's doing.

"I'm still alive," Tyler says. "So's the pack. My uncle's here. We're good. I mean, there are a lot of vampires. Every time we put down one we get another five."

"I figured that," she says. "That's why I'm calling. We're gonna take care of it."

"Who's _we_?"

"Me, Lucy, my Grams," Bonnie says. "Others."

"_Others_?"

"Witches," Bonnie says. "We're going to kill them all."

"How?"

"Magic," she says, laughing. "You and the hybrids are part vampire so it'll affect you, too, unless I can shield you. You're wearing your bracelet, so you'll be fine. I can cover you, but the pack..."

"Bonnie-" He doesn't want to watch them die, not again, when they've barely had a chance to talk.

"It'll be fine," she says. "Can you get to my house?"

"We're supposed to protect the square."

"Screw the square," she says, and Tyler laughs despite the seriousness of their situation.

Bonnie laughs, too. "You and the hybrids just get to my house. You'll be safe there."

"What about the invitation?"

"They're dead, they won't need one."

"Caroline and Elena?"

"I'm covering them, too," Bonnie says in her _duh_ voice. "Just get to my house. Let me know when you're there."

"Got it." He hangs up and calls to Kim. "We've gotta move." She nods, but her expression darkens. She nods to something behind him.

Damon is strolling along in his same old leather jacket and jeans with a bloody hole in his shirt. Steven is closest, seeing any other vampire and prepared to attack.

"Wait," Tyler says. "This one's mine." Steven falls back, and Damon comes to join him on the gazebo, leaning against the railing.

Tyler may have missed Damon's self-satisfied smirk, but once he sees it, he no longer thinks so. He remembers when they killed him, Damon delirious in the tomb and an invisible Jeremy driving a stake through his heart. That's the fondest memory he has of Damon.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't show," Tyler says.

"Didn't mean to keep you waiting, Lockwood," Damon says. He nods to the hybrids. "You got the band back together."

"Did you want something?" Tyler asks.

Damon lunges for him, and Tyler catches him halfway to fling him into the railing which buckles when Damon hits it. He rolls to his feet when he hits the ground only to be knocked back down when Tyler comes at him, throwing a punch that makes Damon's head snap back. He didn't get the honors killing Damon or Stefan the last time around, but he'll get this one at least.

Something sharp plunges its way into Tyler's stomach - a piece of wood from the gazebo. Damon grins at Tyler's cry of pain and shoves him off.

_Dick_, Tyler thinks as he pulls the wood free and throws it away. He rolls just in time to intercept Damon again, kicking him hard in the stomach. He doesn't stay down long. He's back up and coming for Tyler when grips his shoulder and shoves his other hand into his chest. Damon's eyes go wide at the intrusion, getting even wider as Tyler's fingers wrap around his heart. He he can feel it beating against his hand as he takes it from Damon's chest.

Seeing Damon dead again gives him a good feeling.

Tyler lets out a breath as he pushes himself to his feet and tosses Damon's heart somewhere in the dark. "We have to get to Bonnie's."

* * *

Tyler leads them all into Bonnie's house and sends her a text telling her they've arrived. The hybrids spread out as much as they can in the living room and kitchen. Bonnie's house seems miniature with all of them in it.

Tyler's just closed the door when someone rings the doorbell. "Maybe it's the other Salvatore," Lana says from the sofa.

"I hope not," Tyler sighs. "Get off the couch, guys. You'll get blood on it."

With a sigh, Lana and the others oblige and make themselves comfortable on the floor instead.

Tyler peeks through the window and his heart sinks. Not Stefan but Klaus. He'd rather have Stefan. Still, he opens the door.

"Ah, look, the gang's all here," Klaus says, nodding to the hybrids over Tyler's shoulder. There's a snarl from behind him. It may have come from Kevin, but Tyler can't be sure. He grips the doorframe tighter, determined not to let any of the pack past him. Klaus has no invitation. They're safe in the house as long as none of them leaves.

"What-" Tyler begins.

"I received a ghostly visitor of my own tonight," Klaus says. "My brother."

Tyler straightens up. He wonders how Rebekah fared after that news was made public.

"Kol is ripping Jeremy and Elena to shreds as we speak," Klaus says. "I cannot find Bonnie, but when I do she'll follow her_ other_ beloved straight to the grave. Do not fear, Tyler, you won't be left out."

Klaus examines the house, his gaze sliding over it as if to find a weak point. Bonnie's wrapped this house in a variety of protective spells, but they've never been tested before. Klaus turns to go down the porch steps where he finds one of the rocks that lines the path to the front steps. Tyler keeps the door open as Klaus throws it. It'll hit him, but he can take a rock to his chest no problem. It comes to the front door where it strikes an invisible barrier, and it falls with an unceremonious thump onto the porch.

Klaus makes an annoyed humming sound as he mounts the porch steps again. "I hope you can spend the rest of your life in this house," he says. "If you ever step outside of it again, I will crush you. I took your heart from you once, I can do it again. Tell your witch. Maybe she'll be able to do something to help you before I kill her, too."

Tyler doesn't get to respond because Klaus turns to flame.

The heat is overwhelming, the glow blinding, and Klaus' scream deafening. Tyler startles at the sound, and he backs away from the door, worried about any stray embers. He can't look away as Klaus' collapses to the ground, clawing at the porch.

"Look," Sabrina says. She's at the window, craning to see as she points toward something out there. Tyler goes to look and sees another fiery shape a few houses down, howling in pain as it races up the street, trying feebly to extinguish the flames that now cover it.

Klaus' screams go abruptly silent. When Tyler returns to the door, Klaus has curled into himself. He's totally still, his clothes and skin blackened by flame and smoke rising from where he lies.

"What the hell was that?" Mason says.

"Bonnie," Tyler says. "They're killing the vampires, but Klaus will be up soon." Unfortunately his immortality will ensure it. They don't need to witness his sure-to-be enraged resurrection so Tyler closes the door.

* * *

An hour later Kim comes to peer out the window with Tyler who looks out at the empty street. Town has become quiet again with all the vampires dead. Once he was put back together, Klaus took off as well, perhaps to check on his siblings. "Think he'll come back?" Kim asks.

"I don't know," he answers. "I'm not looking for him."

"Who are you looking for?"

"Hayley," Tyler answers. "I thought she'd come."

She should have. She died and the dead are walking, but Mason said Jules chose not to come back. Maybe Hayley did the same. Perhaps coming back would be too hard for her, make her think of a life she couldn't have anymore. But maybe they could have it. Silas is here to raise the dead. If they'll retain their free will, if they'll be back, why not do it? Why not ask Silas to bring back his pack and Mason and Hayley?

Tyler glances down at his phone. He's been waiting for Bonnie or Jeremy to give him a call, but neither has. Bonnie must be fine, considering how Klaus and the other vampire lit up before, and she must have spoken to Jeremy and Elena to tell them what she was going to do. But now what? Do they just wait?

"Don't write her off yet," Kim says, tapping on the glass. She points to someone walking up the street in jeans and a familiar dark jacket. The hood is pulled up over her face, but Tyler recognizes the curls. She turns up the path and approaches the door.

He pulls open the door before she gets to the steps. When Hayley sees him, she smiles. She looks exactly the same, but why would death have changed her anyway? "I thought I'd find you here. I went to your house but-"

He hugs her, and she's solid and real and alive. Even temporarily, maybe even permanently.

"Well, hello to you, too," she says. He remembers that day she turned up at his house, when he was so glad to see her. If she'd never come, she may still be alive.

"You came," Tyler says.

"It's not a party until I get here," she says, stepping into the house. She greets all of the hybrids in turn, pulling them all in for hugs. He had almost forgotten that she had loved them, too.

* * *

Tyler's beginning to think it'll be morning before he hears from either of his friends again. All of his calls to Bonnie go unanswered and all he gets is a text from Elena's phone telling him they're all fine and Kol didn't manage to kill them.

When Bonnie finally does call, Tyler's watching a DVD with the pack. He doesn't know what this movie is about, some historical drama. Cora's really into it, but the others are just talking through it.

"Finally," Tyler says, taking the phone with him to the kitchen. "I've been calling."

"I know," Bonnie says. "We've been busy."

"Same," Jeremy says.

Tyler can't remember the last time he had a threeway phone call.

"I wanted to ask you about the whole bringing back the dead thing," Tyler says. "How does that work?"

Bonnie hesitates to respond so he knows it's bad news. "It doesn't."

"Silas said-" Tyler says.

He feels stupid as soon as he says it. _Silas said._

On his end, Jeremy is quiet. Maybe he was wondering the same thing which makes Tyler wonder what other ghosts Jeremy ran into tonight.

"If they come back, they become enslaved to the witch who resurrected them," she says. "Silas. Me. They can't come back. They won't be...them." She sighs. "Silas lied."

"Of course he did," Jeremy says bitterly.

"I have to stop him," Bonnie says. "Aja and the other witches are back, too. They're with Silas now. If he resurrects them, he has all of their power at his disposal. They'll just be the first. With their power he can lower the veil again and again and again until he gets as many people as he wants."

"You need to use the cure," Tyler realizes. She's asking their permission. They all must agree.

Bonnie nods. "I _can_ stop him. I've figured out a way to get him to take it, and I think it'll work. If I do it fast enough, he won't have time to fight back."

Tyler can hear Elena on Jeremy's end, talking to someone. Jeremy still doesn't say anything. Tyler wants to wait for him to say something.

"I need your answer," Bonnie says.

"Use it," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas win."

If Silas loses, Klaus wins. Silas ingests the cure and dies, but Klaus gets to live. Klaus, who has painted even bigger targets on their backs now.

"Klaus knows about Kol," Tyler says.

"He was always going to find out," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas do this though. If we do, it won't matter what Klaus does to us. We don't even _know_ what Silas will do."

Tyler leans against the countertop and looks toward the pack. Cora is riveted by this ridiculous movie, only breaking her focus to give the finger to Steven and Jack who persist in making fun of her for it.

They would be here for real, if not for Klaus.

"We'll find another way," Jeremy says. "There's gotta be another way."

But if Klaus dies, what will it matter? If Silas gets everything he needs to drag this world to whatever kind of hell he can think up?

"Tyler?" Bonnie says. "Are you still there?"

Hayley approaches him, her head cocked to the side. She can hear everything Bonnie's saying, probably already overhead most of it. She smiles and reaches out to squeeze his arm.

"Do it," Tyler sighs.

"Are you sure?" Bonnie asks.

_No_, Tyler thinks. "Yeah. Use it."

"I have to close the veil," Bonnie says. "It has to be as soon as I kill him or else he'll stay here. But I'll give you as much time as I can," she adds.

"Thanks," Tyler says. "Be careful."

"I will," she promises. "Bye."

When Tyler hangs up, he drops his phone onto the counter and Hayley smiles weakly. "It's not the end of the world," she says. "It's just the end of your...kill Klaus plans."

"There are other ways to make sure Klaus pays for what he did."

Hayley arches a thick, dark eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

"The body switching spell," Tyler says. "We can do that."

"And who will switch bodies with Klaus?"

"I will."

Hayley closes her eyes and rubs the space between them in annoyance. "No."

Tyler sees Mason approaching. If he's heard anything, he'll be on Hayley's side. "We know it'll work," Tyler says before Mason can speak. "It's worked before. If we do it right this time, Klaus will be as good as dead."

"So will you," Hayley says.

"We don't have the cure anymore," Tyler says. "There's no other way for Klaus to die."

"Ty," Mason says, "you're graduating."

"What about California?" Hayley chimes.

"This is the only option we have left," Tyler says.

"No, it's not," Mason says. "You could let it go, leave Klaus alone, and go to California. You can have a life there."

"He'll follow us," Tyler says. "Jeremy will be here on his own. Klaus will kill him, and Elena, then he'll come for me and Bonnie." There won't be a beach or that apartment they'll have to beg Bonnie's dad for. His mom won't ever be able to come home.

"Bonnie's not going to do it," Hayley says. "She killed a man to save your life. She's not just gonna let you throw it away."

Tyler shakes his head, looking down at the bracelet on his wrist and fingering the shells. Bonnie loves him. It'll take some convincing, but she may agree. If he gets Jeremy onboard, it'll be easier. Once he points out that they have no other options, she might be willing to hear it. Besides, Bonnie isn't the only witch he knows.

"You all are going to be disappearing soon," Tyler says. "Do you really want to spend the last of your time here trying to convince me not to do something that we all know I'm still going to do?"

He speeds up to Bonnie's room to find the vodka she's hidden away. There's just enough left for most of them to take a shot. Downstairs Hayley and Mason haven't moved, but Tyler grabs glasses from the cupboard. "Come on, guys," he says. "One last drink before you go."

Hayley and Mason remain stubborn and refuse to join in, but the pack doesn't seem to notice. Adrian and Sabrina are too wrapped up in each other, Lana's making fun of Cora because the last time she drank vodka she threw up three times. They aren't bothered by anything, not even about having to go back to wherever it is they came from.

Tyler pours his last, using up what's left of the vodka. He'll have to buy Bonnie some more. "I just-I just want to thank you for coming back to help me. I _really_ missed you. I'm always gonna miss you. And...yeah." He thinks he could have come up with something better with more time, but they don't have that.

"Very eloquent," Bryant says before they tip back their glasses.

As the pack goes back to their laughing and light-hearted banter Tyler wonders when it will happen, when will they disappear. Has Bonnie already taken care of Silas? Is she closing the veil right now?

"Hey," Kim says, nudging Tyler's arm. "We've only got a little time left. Don't waste it all moping."

Tyler tries not to look at Mason or Hayley as he nods and follows Kim to where Jack and Casey are arm wrestling, Casey's neon orange nails chipped and broken but still very bright.

"I'm calling it," Adrian says, "Jack's got this one."

"No, he doesn't," Cora says. Her historical drama has been forgotten.

Jack doesn't. Casey always wins these things.

As expected, Casey slams Jack's arm onto the table and throws her arms up in victory. There's a chorus of groans and cheers and laughs. Jack has never been a good loser. "I want a-"

He doesn't finish. Tyler looks up to see why.

Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. Kim.

Gone.

Tyler whirls around to look to Hayley and Mason. Also gone. There's a napkin on the kitchen table with something written on it. Tyler snatches it up to read what it.

_Don't do it._

* * *

**Next chapter is Bonnie's POV. Remember everything is happening at the same time across all three so there will be some overlap but not much. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	34. Witch Business

**This ended up way longer than intended hence the much longer wait than usual. Thanks for reading and reviewing.**

* * *

Witch Business

Bonnie blinks at the gleam of April's dress and the glow of Jenny's hair, willing them to disappear. She reminds herself that they're dead - dead because she killed them. She reminds herself that she made peace with that already, but it's hard to remember with them standing right in front of her. She does remember crying for April under a spray of water, wrapped in Jeremy's arms, and she does remember not crying for Jenny at all and having sex with Tyler.

"You need to go," Bonnie says. "There's nothing I can say to make what I did better."

"We know," April says. Has she always sounded so cold? Maybe not, maybe that was something that happened to her in death. "I don't expect you to be able to say anything that will make _this_," she says, gesturing to her very real body, "any better. I didn't even know what was happening to me! I was driving and then I was bleeding and screaming and trying to find help. Then I die in the middle of the woods, _alone_. You can't make that better."

"Then why are you here?" Bonnie asks.

"You should have died instead," April says.

"If you had we'd both still be alive," Jenny adds.

"Yes," Bonnie agrees. "If there'd been another way-"

"There was another way!" April exclaims. "_You_ could have died."

Bonnie holds her gaze, refuses to look down. Doing that won't help anything, won't change anything that she did to them. And she owes them this much, she thinks. She can't give them their lives but she can at least make eye contact. "It was you or me," she says. "It wasn't going to be me."

April's expression seems to falter. Maybe this act she's putting on is just an act. Maybe she thought she'd be able to guilt her, maybe she expected Bonnie to be overflowing with remorse. Jenny Lowman doesn't have those hopes. Her stare remains unyielding and cool, and Bonnie stares back.

"You have to go," Bonnie says. She has to think, has things to do. She can't do them with these two here.

"We're not going anywhere," Jenny says, stepping toward Bonnie. Her eyes flick down to the front of Jenny's shirt where she can see the space where the knife would have impaled her. The blood would spread - did spread - across her white t-shirt. Now it's as clean and white as if she had never been stabbed to begin with.

"You're not staying here," Bonnie says, meeting Jenny's eyes again. "Leave. Or I'll kill you again."

"You'll have to," she says, "because I'm not leaving."

Bonnie draws in a breath. It's just an illusion, a very good one. April cries out as two puncture marks appear on her neck and blood begins to pour down her neck, onto the top of her dress, mingling with her hair. A bloodstain appears across Jenny's shirt, widening as blood spurts from her mouth. Her hands leap to cover the wound. Maybe that's what she did the first time, too. It doesn't do anything. The blood keeps coming.

"Leave," Bonnie says again. "Go see your families, your friends. Don't make me kill you again."

April takes her hand away from her neck. When she speaks her earlier resolve has returned, her stony coldness. "I don't have any family. I don't have any friends."

That's right. She doesn't.

Bonnie releases the illusion, letting April and Jenny return to normal. The blood disappears as if it was never there, which it wasn't. Jenny looks angrier than before. Her hands have curled into fists.

"I'm sorry you had to die so I could live," Bonnie says, "but I'm not sorry I'm alive. I wouldn't change that." _I'm sorry for this, too_, she thinks. Neither April nor Jenny has time to look surprised as she breaks their necks and watches them crumple to the floor, April's dress still shining in this dank basement, Jenny's hair spreading around her head like a halo.

Bonnie is staring at them as she finds her phone. It's hard to look away from them and down to the screen. Two missed calls from Tyler. As she's looking, he calls again. She takes in a deep breath before answering.

"Hello?"

"Are you okay?" She should have kept her phone turned up. Now he's worried.

"I'm fine," she answers. She feels through the school and realizes he and Jeremy aren't upstairs anymore. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the woods," he says. "Someone took Jeremy. I don't know who."

The list of dead people who could be after them flashes before her eyes. It's a really long list. "We have to find him. The veil's down. It could have been _anyone_. This town is crawling with dead people."

Like April and Jenny and the other man. Bonnie's sacrifices, for Tyler's life and for hers.

"I noticed," he says. "It was kind of obvious once my pack showed up."

He doesn't give her much of a chance to say anything, to ask how they are, what he thinks about them being back. She just wants to talk to him, just talk. She feels exhausted and doesn't want to do anything but that. "Can you do a locater spell?" Tyler asks.

"Stay on the phone," Bonnie says. "I'll do it now."

She can't do one, not without anything of Jeremy's, but there are other ways to find people. She scopes the school first, gliding over no one. When she extends further, she can feel Tyler. She feels his pack, too, though they are like cold spots, little black holes that she can't really grasp. They are dead, after all.

There are _lots_ of cold spots. Everywhere in town, but there are warm, living ones. She goes past the square, toward the Gilbert house. There's one cold thing within it, a warmer though still chilly something that she realizes is Elena. She goes further, feels an even warmer something.

"Jeremy's fine," Tyler says, making Bonnie jump. "He's with Elena." Yes, he is. "And Damon."

"Ugh."

"Are you okay?" Tyler asks again. "Where's Silas?"

"I'm fine," she answers, turning away from Jenny's and April's bodies. They're harder to look at than the other man is. "Silas is gone, I don't know where. I think he's off looking for his girlfriend. April and Jenny Lowman were here."

"Are they still there?"

Bonnie glances over her shoulder at them, then she mentally curses herself for doing so. She turns back to the dark wall. "They're gone," she says, hearing her voice waver. She hopes Tyler didn't notice.

"There are probably thousands of vampires here, and they're all trying to kill _us_," he says. If he thinks she sounds weird, he's decided not to comment on it. Of course she sounds weird, there are ghosts running around town. Not sounding weird would be weirder. "Do dead vampires still feed? If they do, this town is one hell of a buffet."

That's a good question.

Bonnie sees a ripple of movement out of the corner of her eye and turns toward it. She's surprised by how _not_ surprised she is, to see Stefan emerging from the dark with his arms crossed, his gaze traveling the three bodies that litter the basement floor. He looks especially interested in April and Jenny.

"Can you and the pack try to stop some of them?" she asks.

Stefan pauses near April, cocking his head and giving it a slight shake. He crouches down next to her, to lift strands of her hair away to peer at her neck. He smiles as if he finds the whole thing very amusing.

"We can try," Tyler says, his voice sounding miles away, "but we're not gonna be able to stop them all."

"You just need to do enough until I get the veil closed again," Bonnie says, keeping her voice steady and her eyes on Stefan, "until Silas finishes what he needs done. Just be really careful, okay? I have to go now."

Stefan looks up at her, and the corner of his mouth turns upward as he straightens up.

"You have to go?" Tyler asks. "You don't want to come with us?"

Bonnie replies like she's on autopilot. "I have things to do here," she says. "I have ghosts of my own to deal with. Handle the vampires, I'll find you when I can."

"Bonnie-"

"Bye."

She ends the call and slides her phone into her back pocket as she looks at Stefan. He steps over April, his foot barely missing the glowing circle of Jenny's hair. "I don't know what I expected," he says, "but this wasn't it." He motions to April and Jenny. "What a shame. I never thought you'd feel anything for killing me, but for these girls? Bonnie Bennett feels _nothing_?" He takes a step toward her, and Bonnie holds her ground. "Remind me what makes you so much better than me."

"Lots of things."

Stefan narrows his eyes at her. "Do you feel it? Your..._deserving_? There are hundreds of vampires in this town right now, ready to tear it apart and you with it. And you _deserve_ it, everything they're going to bring on you. Every bit of blood spilled tonight is on your hands, and if you die tonight - if Tyler or Jeremy dies tonight - that'll be on you, too. All of you, not just you, I wouldn't dare rest all the blame on your shoulders." He turns away from her, stopping near April and Jenny again. He cocks his head to the side. "I did wonder what happened to April," he says, "since I knew it definitely wasn't _me_ who killed her."

"Technically it was."

"Obviously technicalities don't apply," Stefan says. "She was here to haunt _you_, not me. You killed her, Bonnie, make no mistake. This one here." He crouches down to touch Jenny's cheek. "She's more my type."

She doesn't like him touching them, acting as if he was a lesser threat to them in life than Bonnie.

"Go away, Stefan," she hisses. It's not a spell, but maybe it doesn't need to be because Stefan disappears before her eyes.

"He likes to hear himself talk, doesn't he?"

Bonnie smiles as soon as she hears her voice. Her smile only gets wider when she sees Sheila. "He does. Did you do that?" Bonnie asks, gesturing to where Stefan used to be.

"I did," Sheila says. "You should have done it yourself. There's reason for you to listen to a Salvatore."

"Yeah," Bonnie says, "I know. I just...Yeah. Anyway, it's about time I got a friendly ghost."

Sheila hugs her, and Bonnie hopes she doesn't look at April and Jenny and the other man. If she does look, she doesn't mention them. When she releases Bonnie, she smiles. "Call your mom and Lucy. We have work to do."

* * *

Lucy and Abby come to pick them up. Bonnie hurries them into the car, telling them they can have their family reunion when they get to the witch house and out of danger. She feels exposed at the school, knowing how many vampires have overrun the town, knowing how many of them are looking for her, Tyler and Jeremy.

Sheila assures them they have someone waiting for them at the house.

"Are all one hundred of those witches there?" Bonnie asks.

"Of course not," Sheila says. "Though I'm sure they'll give us any help we may need."

"Help we need to do what?" Lucy asks. "I know we're supposed to be killing vampires. And I'm game for that, but what else are we supposed to be doing?"

"We have to stop Silas," Sheila says.

Abby swivels around in her seat to look at her. Bonnie can't remember the last time she saw Sheila and her mom in the same place. She forgot that they look so alike. "I thought stopping Silas wasn't our priority," she says, looking to Bonnie.

"It isn't," Bonnie says. "Grams-"

"It should be," Sheila says sternly. "Atticus will explain."

"_Atticus_?" Bonnie says. "You mean Shane?"

Sheila nods.

"We can't trust him," Bonnie says. "I _killed_ him."

"Oh, I know," Sheila says. "And believe me, he's seen the error of his ways. Death changes people."

"Not that much," Bonnie says, thinking of Stefan. Her phone rings in her pocket and she fishes it out. Elena's name flashes across the screen, but it's Jeremy on the other end. He sounds a little out of breath, but fine.

"Hi," Bonnie says. "How's it going?"

"Good," he says conversationally. "Taking care of business, you know. Hunters, vampires, hunters."

"Hunters?"

"Yes, my brothers in stakes," Jeremy says. "They really know how to hold a grudge, but don't worry about it, we're fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Bonnie says. She's probably doing better than Jeremy and Tyler are. She'll have to get to work on helping with that as soon as they get to the house. "We're gonna help you soon, okay? Just hang in there."

"I'm hanging."

"What about Damon?" Bonnie asks.

"He's...here."

"What's he doing?"

"He's helping Elena clean up a mess," Jeremy says, "but we keep getting vampires in here so it's just going to get messed up again. I think they're just using it as an excuse not to be near me." He sighs and lowers his voice. She hears him turn on the faucet. "I don't know what Elena's...I don't know what he's telling her, and I don't know what she's thinking. I can't leave her here alone with all this stuff going on, but if Damon's gonna try something, I can't _stay_ here."

"We'll figure something out," Bonnie says, "to get rid of him before he gets the chance to do anything. Just keep your distance. Don't be alone with him. Stay where Elena can see you. He won't kill you right in front of her."

"One time he did."

_Oh. _"I remember. Just hold onto your stake."

Jeremy laughs. She's glad he can find something to laugh at tonight. "I didn't consider doing that."

"I saw Stefan earlier," Bonnie tells him.

"I don't know which one of us has it worse," Jeremy says. "What did he want?"

"To hear his own voice, but it's done."

"Is he dead?"

"No." _Unfortunately. _

Jeremy sighs heavily. "So he'll be making a stop here to see Elena."

That sounds likely.

"I should probably go," he says. "I should like, fortify the house or something. I'll see you later?"

"If we survive the night."

"We will," Jeremy says. "We've lived this long. Nothing can kill us now."

"Don't jinx it," Bonnie says. She's only half joking. "I'll see you later? Come by my house when this is all done?"

"Yeah," he says. "Bye."

Bonnie mumbles her goodbye and stares at her phone even after she's hung up. She looks away as the car bumps over something. Lucy is parking them in the woods. They have to walk the rest of the way.

Bonnie feels out the woods as they go, but they're empty. Of vampires at least. Inside the house, she feels better. Or at least she does until she sees Shane rounding the corner in the same jeans and a jacket she killed him in.

"Hello, Bonnie," he says, with a kindly nod of his head. "Sheila."

"Atticus," Sheila says. "Have you met my daughter, Abby? And my niece, Lucy."

Bonnie wants to tell her not to introduce them. Shane doesn't deserve to know their family.

"It's nice to meet you," Shane says politely. Abby and Lucy only blink at him. At least they're on the same page.

"Where's Emily?" Sheila asks.

"Emily?"

"I'm here," a voice chimes from their right. Bonnie turns her head to see Emily walking toward them, her hands folded primly in front of her and her hair pulled back into a thick bun. Whenever Bonnie pictures her she saw her in the white dress and hat tied beneath her chin, but that must not have been how she was dressed when she died. Her dress is dark blue and short-sleeved, plain but pretty.

"I'm glad you came," Sheila says.

"I said I would help," Emily says. She nods to Bonnie, smiling politely. "Hello again, Bonnie."

"Hey."

Bonnie knew they were going to be having a little bit of a family reunion, but she didn't think they'd be going back this far.

"I told them you would explain, Atticus," Sheila says, taking a casual loop around the room, "since you were so excited about it."

"Excited isn't the word I would use," Shane says.

"Just talk," Bonnie says impatiently.

Shane looks uncomfortable, maybe because she's staring at him with so much disdain, but he speaks. "Silas lied to you and to me, about raising the dead."

Bonnie lifts an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"The only way Silas can raise the dead is if they give him permission to raise them," Shane says.

"But it's not just their consent they'll be giving," Emily adds. "It's their power, whatever it is. It's their will. They have to give it to him to be risen again, and once they are, he keeps it. Then they're bound to him forever, to do his bidding. They'll belong to him, they'll be controlled by him or any witch who chose to raise them. That's the price one must pay."

"The stories were true," Shane says.

"We can't let him do it," Sheila says. "Can we? And you have the cure."

It's still in her pocket, now feeling like a stone.

Emily sees her hesitation "There is no other way," she says. "We kill Silas _tonight_ or he'll begin his plans."

"He's waiting for his lost love to show," Bonnie says. "He won't start until she does."

"She could be here right now," Shane says. "Aja and her witches will be here, too. They'll give him whatever he needs to raise them, and then he'll have the power of twelve witches at his disposal. Thirteen if you count the one you killed on the island. That's more than enough to get him started. He'll have them spread the word and then every dead thing in this town is going to go to him to be resurrected."

"I have to talk to-"

Something smashes against the side of the house, and they all turn toward the sound.

Abby crosses the room to the window. "Vampires," she says. "One tried to come in. Plus twelve witches. It's Ramona."

Lucy groans and joins Abby at the window. "Will she just give it up already?"

"We have to deal with this first," Bonnie says.

"They won't be able to come inside," Emily says. "The other witches will protect us while we work. That coven is too small to be of any real danger to us." She stands in front of the other window casually, looking out into the dark with a bored expression.

Bonnie goes to stand with her, and Emily shifts so Bonnie can see. The vampires are standing several feet away, as if they're afraid to get any closer. One with oily hair is standing at Ramona's side while she examines the house, searching for weaknesses. Even before Bonnie recognizes him, she recognizes the silver chain around his neck. If she could look closer, she would see the hands on its pendant. This is the vampire she saw in her dream.

"I see she found her boyfriend," Lucy says. "Carlos."

Ramona turns her head as if she heard them speaking and meets Bonnie's eyes. Instinctively Bonnie draws away, but Emily doesn't move. She's smiling slightly though. "What?" Bonnie asks.

"Don't be afraid of her," she says. "She's a witch and that makes her strong, but she's not a Bennett. She's no threat to you."

"She's practiced longer."

"None of you have practiced longer than me," Emily says. Then she turns toward Bonnie, her smile growing wider. "Are you and that boy still together? The one whose life you begged me to save? Jeremy Gilbert?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. In an interesting way. She's not about to explain it.

"Good," is all Emily says. She tilts her head back to look at the ceiling. "I don't like this house."

"Can't blame you," Bonnie says. "You did die here."

"But it's where we're strongest," Emily says. "Funny how that works out."

"Come over here," Sheila calls. Bonnie can hear the impatience in her voice, and she and Emily hurry to where Sheila is now sitting on the floor with her legs folded. "It shouldn't be a problem with the four of us and the ninety-nine of them."

Shane looks curiously around the house as if he'll be able to see the other ninety-nine witches as Lucy brushes past him to sit down across from Sheila. "What exactly are we doing?" she asks.

"We're going to set them all on fire," Sheila says. Bonnie thinks she can detect a hint of excitement in her voice. "Call your friends, tell them what we're doing. You'll need to shield them while we work or else they'll die with all the others. Hurry up, now. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can deal with our real problem."

"Then I'll call Tyler and Jeremy."

"Who's Tyler?" Bonnie hears Emily ask as she turns away.

"Her boyfriend," Abby answers.

"Jeremy Gilbert isn't her boyfriend?" Emily asks.

There are vampires and coven of witches outside and they'd like to discuss Bonnie's love life.

"He's one of them," Lucy says.

Oh, God.

Bonnie ducks into another room to call. She dials Elena and pretends she doesn't hear Abby and Emily curiously questioning Lucy about what she means by that.

"Bonnie?" It's Elena who answers which makes sense because it's her phone, but Bonnie's still surprised to hear her voice.

"Hi," Bonnie says. "Is Jeremy around?"

"Hold on."

The phone crackles as it's passed, and then Jeremy's voice is in her ear. "Hey," he says. "Got some good news for me?"

"We're going to kill the vampires."

"Thank God," Jeremy says. "Damon's gone, but we haven't seen Stefan yet. And I don't want to after the shit Damon just pulled."

Bonnie wants to ask him about that, but they don't have the time.

"You might be spared Stefan," she says. "That's why I'm calling. We're going to set them all on fire, but make sure Elena doesn't leave the house, okay? I can shield her better if she stays in one place."

It'll be easy to keep Elena, Caroline and Tyler under an umbrella. She knows them well enough that shielding them won't be a problem. As long as she can keep track of them.

"She's not going anywhere," Jeremy assures her. "That whole bonfire thing isn't going to do much to an Original though, is it?"

"No," Bonnie says. "It'll burn them, kill them temporarily but...Has Kol tried something?"

"Not yet," Jeremy says, "that's what worries me. We don't have a way to kill him without the white oak stake."

Which Rebekah has.

"Don't worry about it," Jeremy says quickly. "You do your thing, we'll do ours. Okay?"

"Okay," Bonnie says, though now she's worried all over again.

Jeremy says goodbye, and Bonnie hangs up to call Caroline.

"Of course she didn't tell me," Lucy's saying. "That doesn't really come up in casual conversation. I can just tell. You can't tell?"

"She can't have two boyfriends," Abby says.

Lucy sounds offended when she says, "Why not?"

Bonnie calls Caroline and tries not to think about her mom, grandmother, cousin and ancestor sitting on the floor talking about her two boyfriends.

"Where are you?" Caroline demands and Bonnie feels almost like she missed an appointment and is going to be severely punished.

"I'm with my family," Bonnie says. "We're going to try to kill the vampires in town. I just wanted you to get somewhere and stay there so I can make sure we don't kill you, too."

"That's great," Caroline says. "That's so, so, _so_ great. The deputies keep getting bitten and I have to keep biting myself to heal them and it's getting_really_ tedious."

Bonnie smiles into the phone, picturing a frazzled Caroline biting herself every few minutes to offer her blood to a wounded deputy. "Where are you?"

"I'm pretty close to Elena's," Caroline says. "I'll go there and wait for you to do your thing."

"Great," Bonnie says. "I'll call you later."

"Gotcha."

"One more," Bonnie thinks, scrolling through her contacts for Tyler's number.

"We can't tell Rudy," Abby says.

"I'm glad you said that," Lucy says, "because I was going to send him a text.

"How long has this been going on?" Sheila asks.

Bonnie almost laughs, but then she doesn't because she's going to have to go back over there soon.

"Hey," Tyler says, sounding energized and almost...happy.

"How's it going out there?" Bonnie asks.

"I'm still alive," Tyler says. "So's the pack. My uncle's here. We're good. I mean, there are a lot of vampires. Every time we put down one we get another five."

"I figured that," she says. "That's why I'm calling. We're gonna take care of it."

"Who's _we_?"

"Me, Lucy, my Grams," Bonnie says. "Others."

"_Others_?"

"Witches," Bonnie says. _Ninety-nine of them. _ "We're going to kill them all."

"How?"

"Magic," she says, laughing. "You and the hybrids are part vampire so it'll affect you, too, unless I can shield you. You're wearing your bracelet, so you'll be fine. I can cover you, but the pack..." She can feel him perfectly, even better than she can feel the others.

"Bonnie-"

"It'll be fine," she promises. "Can you get to my house?"

"We're supposed to protect the square."

"Screw the square," she says, which makes him laugh.

She laughs, too. "You and the hybrids just get to my house. You'll be safe there."

"What about the invitation?"

"They're dead, they won't need one."

"Caroline and Elena?"

"I'm covering them, too," Bonnie says in her _duh_ voice. Did he think she was just going to let all their other friends go up in flames? "Just get to my house. Let me know when you're there."

"Got it."

* * *

"Tyler's at the house," Bonnie says when his text comes in. "We should start."

None of them has commented on their topic of discussion while Bonnie was out of the room, and she's grateful. They should save that for a later time. A _never_ time.

Abby stands near the wall, her face angled to the windows. She's the safest vampire in town, tucked into this house with an abundance of magic to protect her. Lucy, Emily and Sheila will kill the vampires,and Bonnie will make sure Elena, Caroline, Tyler and his pack don't die with them. They're easy to protect. Elena and Caroline at the Gilbert place with Jeremy. Bonnie thinks she even senses Matt. Tyler and the pack are at her house. Twelve coldspots and a not-so-cold one that is Tyler. His bracelet makes him so easy to feel that Bonnie thinks she could touch him and have him feel her fingers. Another spot is at her house as well, but it's outside the door.

She knows it's Klaus when she pushes, and she knows he'll burn like the others. _Good_.

She holds the shield around the others, telling the magic not to enter.

Bonnie's still holding the barrier in place when she hears the scream from outside. She cracks open an eye to see an orange glow spilling through the windows, and she hears the chants of Ramona's coven in a futile attempt to save their burning vampires. The screams die away and the chanting gives way to crying.

"It's done," Sheila says matter-of-factly. "Now for the real problem."

"I have to talk to Tyler and Jeremy first," Bonnie says. They're all going to ignore the angry witches outside the house apparently. "But even if they agree, how do we kill Silas?"

"Make him see what you want him to see," Sheila says.

"It's what he does to you," Shane says, "when he appears as someone else. He sees them in your mind and projects them back to you."

"You'll have to do the same to him," Emily says.

"_I _will?" she says. "He'll see through me. He's psychic, he'll know." It was exactly what Silas said. She's transparent, he'll know exactly what they're doing, and he'll defend himself.

"He won't," Emily says, taking Bonnie's hands in hers. "You're not the only witch here, Bonnie. We'll help you."

* * *

The plan has been laid out when Bonnie calls Jeremy and then Tyler. A three-way phone call just like the ones she used to have with Caroline and Elena back in middle school.

"Finally," Tyler says. "I've been calling."

"I know," Bonnie says. He has. "We've been busy."

"Same," Jeremy says.

"I wanted to ask you about the whole bringing back the dead thing," Tyler says. "How does that work?"

He has excellent timing in the worst possible way. She tries to find a way to explain. "It doesn't," she says finally.

"Silas said-" Tyler says. He stops speaking abruptly, as if he's remembered who it is they're speaking about. Silas.

Jeremy's still quiet.

"If they come back, they become enslaved to the witch who resurrected them," she says. "Silas. Me. They can't come back. They won't be...them." She sighs, thinking of the pack that's probably surrounding Tyler right now, a pack that was taken from him too soon. "Silas lied."

"Of course he did," Jeremy says bitterly.

"I have to stop him," Bonnie says. "Aja and the other witches are back, too. They're with Silas now. If he resurrects them, he has all of their power at his disposal. They'll just be the first. With their power he can lower the veil again and again and again until he gets as many people as he wants."

"You need to use the cure," Tyler says.

Bonnie nods. "I _can_ stop him. I've figured out a way to get him to take it, and I think it'll work. If I do it fast enough, he won't have time to fight back."

They're both so quiet.

"I need your answer," she says, feeling terrible for having to rush them. Under any other circumstances, this would be a conversation they would have for a long time and then they'd sleep on it and decide later. Now they don't have that kind of time.

"Use it," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas win."

"Klaus knows about Kol," Tyler says.

"He was always going to find out," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas do this though. If we do, it won't matter what Klaus does to us. We don't even _know_ what Silas will do. We'll find another way. There's gotta be another way."

Maybe there is one. Bonnie will look. She's never stop looking, not until she finds some other way of stopping Klaus. This isn't over yet, and it won't be over just because they won't have a cure anymore.

But Tyler's not saying anything.

"Tyler?" Bonnie says. "Are you still there?"

"Do it."

"Are you sure?" Bonnie asks. He doesn't sound certain. Can any of them really be certain?

"Yeah. Use it."

He's not sure, and she knows it.

"I have to close the veil," she says. "It has to be as soon as I kill him or else he'll stay here. But I'll give you as much time as I can," she adds.

"Thanks," Tyler says. "Be careful."

"I will," she promises. "Bye."

Tyler hangs up but Jeremy's still on the line. "We'll figure something else out," she assures him.

"I know," he says. "I should go. My family's here. I want to say goodbye."

Bonnie wants to ask him when they got there, who's all there, but he's already hanging up. With a sigh, she turns back to Emily and the others. "Let's do it."

* * *

Ramona and her coven are still outside when Silas arrives. He walks past them without a second look to approach the house. When one of them stands, calling to him and asking for his help, he ignores her. They are all shocked to see him enter the house. One of the witches, a dark haired man, tries to do the same, but he is rebuffed at the front door and thrown away like he weighs nothing.

Silas doesn't flinch at the witch's cry. He walks further into the house slowly. Maybe he can sense the witches there, a hundred who came long after him. Maybe they make him nervous. Still, he steps through, his eyes scanning the darkness. Bonnie stays still and in the shadows, reaching out to touch his mind. The woman is the first thing she sees.

She was beautiful, dark skinned with hair that fell in braids to her waist and large brown eyes accompanied by long, thick lashes. She was tall and willowy but still smaller than Silas. She walked gracefully, spoke every word slowly.

Bonnie can see his memories of her, the first time he saw her when she was dipping her hands into the river and remained oblivious to his presence. The first time he kissed her, inappropriately and secretly, hidden from both of their families and friends. Finding her body after Qetsiyah killed her, her dark eyes which were once so spirited now lifeless. Bonnie sees how he adores her all these centuries later, how he fears she won't be coming tonight.

She hasn't come yet. The veil has been down this long. If she was coming, she'd be here. She's not coming. That's good for Bonnie at least.

She wraps herself in this woman, this woman Silas loved and Qetsiyah despised. She takes on her hair and her face and her skin, her voice. She takes on her clothing, the long skirt and ragged top she had been wearing when Qetsiyah found and killed her.

"Silas," she says, stepping forward.

It's the first time Bonnie has seen Silas look at all startled.

"Liat," he says. It is her name.

"You took your time," Silas says, reaching out for Bonnie's hands. They are darker than her own, the nails round and the fingers slim. "I was afraid you wouldn't come." His smile is relieved.

"Of course I was coming," Bonnie says. She speaks coolly with a voice like fluid, clear as water. "It's been so long since we've seen each other. Though this isn't you at all, is it?" She reaches to touch his face - Shane's face. "I admit he's handsome," she concedes, "but I still prefer you."

It must be Emily and the others making her talk like this. Bonnie doubts she has the presence of mind to do it consciously, trying to keep herself looking like Liat. The last time she tried this particular gambit it was with Stefan and she was Elena. Her nose started bleeding and the illusion faltered. It won't do that this time. She hopes it won't at least.

Silas looks down at the ground. Across his mind, she sees his shame. "Qetsiyah," he says, "my face isn't...She took it in case we ever met again, so you wouldn't recognize me. You'd never love me with what she left me. It's...nothing."

Bonnie trails her fingers to his neck. "Show me."

Silas hesitates against her, but he obliges. One minute Bonnie's looking up into Shane's face, at his head of dark hair and his dark eyes and then she's looking at... She's not sure what she's looking at. Silas has a face...sort of. There are no eyes, no mouth, no nose, no anything. There is a blank slate where his features should be.

"She was harsh in her punishment," Silas says. His voice comes from the space where his mouth should be.

In Silas' mind she sees what should be there, what Qetsiyah stole from him. Long, flowing hair that could rival Liat's, skin in a deep ebony and eyes of dark brown, so deep they look like pools that she could step into. There should be a full mouth, lips that curve downward and make him look perpetually saddened (though Liat knows better). There should be a slender nose, long and pointed. He should be handsome.

But he's not. He's nothing. His face no longer exists.

Liat wouldn't care, and Bonnie feels like her, can feel her. She doesn't care. It wasn't only Silas' face that enchanted her. She touches his face, runs her fingers over his skin. She trembles as she touches him, the flat planes of his face that give way to curves. She takes her hand away when she reaches the place where his lips should be, where there is only a disturbing rise and fall on the surface.

"It doesn't matter," she says, folding her hands up in hers. "I came because I wanted to talk to you again."

"I can bring you back," Silas says, "if you let me." He shifts back into Shane as she blinks her eyes, his face - or lack thereof - being replaced.

"You know I won't let you," she says. It's what Liat would say, and they both know it. Silas looks at the ground.

"I will be free, Silas," she says. "Even in death."

"I would not hurt you," he says. "Or allow anyone else to. I would-"

"No," she says firmly. Then, more gently, "Besides, I'll only die again in time."

There are ways now," Silas says. "There are creatures called vampires. We can-"

Bonnie shakes her head. "You think them vermin."

"Liat-"

"And I would not be free," she says. "I know what resurrection requires of me, and what it gives to you. The Silas I remember would never ask me to do this." She feels him wanting to pull away from her, but she keeps her hands tight on his. "I suppose time has changed us both. What I'm about to ask you, I never would have asked either."

Silas looks at her curiously, intrigued.

Bonnie takes a breath, one Liat would take. This should be hard for her. She loves him too much for it to be easy. "Die," she says.

Silas isn't as horrified as Bonnie thought he'd be. He is reserved, quiet. Maybe this is closer to the Silas Liat knew.

"I watched you in that tomb, just waiting and hoping someone would save you," Bonnie says. "Then later, I'm ashamed to admit, I hoped someone would kill you so that we could be together again." She feels herself crying, and she nearly jumps when Silas touches her face to wipe the tears away.

"I don't know how," Silas says. "I gave the cure to the girl, Qetsiyah's descendent."

"Yes," Bonnie says. "We met." She takes the cure from her pocket which looks a lot like a pouch tied to Liat's waist to Silas' eyes. "She was overwhelmed by others like me. Those vampires you spoke of, I think. I was able to take it from her. She'll come looking for it though." She takes his hand and slides the cure into it, folding it up with hers. "I understand if you don't want to, but I do want you to. Death has made me selfish it seems."

Silas shakes his head, steps closer to her. "It hasn't. You're just like I remember you, but _I_ have changed. Haven't I?"

"Not so much that I don't recognize you," she says. It makes Silas smile some, and Bonnie is surprised by the feeling of elation it brings to her chest. Emily and the witches may be a bit too good at this. "Death isn't so bad, Silas. I know you always feared it, but it's...a relief. Truly. You and I can go wherever we want, be whoever we want, do whatever we want. We can be together, as we were meant to be."

He leans forward to kiss her forehead as he pulls the cure from her hand. "This is what you want?"

"I want you."

Silas looks down at the vial for a long time. Bonnie stays quiet, letting him think. This is what Liat used to do. She never pressed him, she let him consider on his own. She made her opinion known and then it was his turn, and she always stepped away like she knew he'd make the right decision in the end. He always did. She was never disappointed in him.

Silas exhales and raises his eyes to hers. "Very well." He tugs the top from the vial and raises it to his mouth. She watches him swallow it down with wide eyes. When he begins to cough, she takes his arm and helps him to the ground where he beings to heave. She sits at his side, as Liat would do. She has never turned away from him. He vomits, clawing at the ground, and she takes his hand in hers and feels him squeeze in thanks. After the nausea subsides, he stays on the floor for a moment. He's shaking, his hand is sweating. Bonnie had forgotten that Silas was human until this moment.

"Liat," he says, his voice weak. "It is done." He leans his head against her and closes his eyes.

"Thank you," she says, reaching to stroke his hair.

"Now who will kill me?" Silas asks. It may be a joke. She can't believe Silas knows how to joke. She pulls away from him, rising to her feet. For a moment she considers allowing him to die believing Liat was with him all along. It would be kinder, maybe even easier for them. Silas will go peacefully, ready and willing.

But after all this, it would be nice for him to know who is killing him.

"Hold him," she says, as if to no one in particular, but the hundred witches will hear and they will help.

Silas looks to her in confusion. The realization is beginning to dawn when she lets Liat slip away. It's Bonnie he looks at now.

"No!" He bellows so loudly it makes her jump. "_Where is she_?"

"She didn't come," Bonnie answers. "She was never coming."

"No," Silas says. She can feel his magic. It is powerful, but it is contained. It crackles around him, as if in a bubble that it can't escape.

"Goodbye, Silas." She breaks his neck with a flick of her wrist, just like with the nameless man and April and Jenny in the school's basement. The crack of the bone sounds throughout the house. His magic fizzles and disperses as he slumps on the floor with a thump.

When Bonnie turns around, the others are there. Emily, Grams, Abby, Lucy and Shane, looking at Silas' body with wide eyes.

"Good job," Lucy says, smiling.

"Now the veil," Bonnie says, "before he comes back."

"The others will delay it for awhile," Emily says. "Long enough to say our goodbyes."

_Goodbyes_.

She hopes Tyler and Jeremy are saying theirs.

Bonnie ignores Shane and goes to Emily who takes her hands. "Thank you," Bonnie says, "for your help."

Emily nods. "You're welcome." She steps away to stand near the wall, patiently waiting.

Bonnie turns to Sheila next who pats Abby's hand as she steps away and comes to touch Bonnie's cheek. "You've done well."

"It's not over yet," Bonnie says, looking warily to Silas' body.

"Still," Sheila says, reaching out to hug her. "I'm very proud of you."

"I dreamt of you," Bonnie says.

"Did you?"

Bonnie nods. "We were talking about the cure. When I told you I needed it, you said 'I know you believe that.' What did you mean?"

"I don't know," Sheila says. "Are you sure it was me who said it?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "You said it."

"But did I say it _first_?"

Bonnie feels like she's right back in that trance again where nothing makes sense. Sheila laughs at her annoyed expression and leans to kiss her cheek. "Goodbye, Bonnie."

Sheila hugs Lucy next then goes to stand at Emily's side. Shane remains near the wall, watching quietly. When he catches Bonnie's eyes, he smiles weakly.

"Ready?" Lucy asks, holding out her hand.

Bonnie takes it.

* * *

They are leaving. Bonnie feels them going, feels the air deflating. When she looks up to where Sheila, Emily and Shane were, there's no one there. Abby looks sadly toward the empty space and then back to Bonnie and Lucy. She looks out the window. "They're gone, too."

"Then it's closed," Lucy says.

Yeah, it's closed.

"We should do something with him," Abby says.

"Take his body outside," Lucy says. "I'll burn it."

They go, but Bonnie remains. There are a hundred voices in her ear, but Emily's is the loudest of them all.

_For you_, they say.

She feels the bracelet as it reattaches itself to her wrist. When she looks down, she smiles at the words.

Bennett.


	35. Gilbert Family Values

**I know this took forever to get updated, but here it is now! Next chapter we return to our regular formatting and the trio is reunited. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Gilbert Family Values

Jeremy follows Elena and Damon into the house, none of them speaking. Well, Damon speaks, but Jeremy's trying to tune him out as much as he can. Then he's reminded that he should keep as close an eye on Damon as possible, but it's just so fucking hard to do when every word that comes out of his mouth makes Jeremy want to drive a stake through his heart all over again. But Elena's there, and she's definitely not sending Damon on his merry way so Jeremy's hesitant to do anything that may knock their fragile understanding off its axis.

Getting back to the house was harder than it should have been. They were met by vampires on the way. Jeremy's reluctant to admit it, but they wouldn't have made it back without Damon's help. With just the two of them, they wouldn't have managed. If it had been Kol, instead of the few vampires they got, they would have been killed.

"Place looks the same," Damon says, doing a loop around the front room. He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it across the back of one of the chairs.

"Yeah," Elena agrees, hovering near the sofa where she watches Damon do his circuit. Jeremy goes into the kitchen. He leans against the counter, elbows on top, to watch them. His stake feels like it's burning a hole in his back pocket, the pointed end just dying to go into _something_.

Damon turns back to Elena and flashes a smile. He steps closer to her, until there's only about a foot of space that separates them. "So do you," he says, reaching out to touch Elena's face.

Jeremy turns his back. He feels in his pocket for his phone and comes away with nothing but air.

_Fuck_.

"Elena," Jeremy says, glaring at the row of cupboards and refusing to look anywhere near them again, "can I use your phone?"

He thinks he can feel Damon's annoyance, but Elena hurries over to press her phone into his hand. Jeremy doesn't look at her face. He only sees her hair out of the corner of his eye as it swishes over her shoulder as she turns back to Damon. Jeremy makes a beeline for the back door. He won't have to look at either of them out there.

Scanning the yard, he sits on the back porch. He can't see or hear anyone out here, but anyone could be close. And in this town, anyone means someone with fangs and bloodlust. He dials Tyler first. There's no telling what kind of panic he's worked himself into with Jeremy missing, and Jeremy tries not to imagine Tyler dealing with his own group of vampires on his own. Jeremy had wanted to go back to the school, but was hesitant with Damon in tow. Hopefully Tyler's still with Bonnie. If they're together, they're safe.

"Just pick up the phone, Lockwood."

"Elena?"

"It's me," Jeremy says.

"You're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jeremy says. "Katherine grabbed me then there were vampires. Kol's line, some from the alley, _Damon_."

_"Damon_?"

It would be nice if the things they killed just stayed dead. It would definitely make for less stressful living.

"Yeah, Damon," Jeremy confirms. "Stefan's probably here, too, but we haven't seen him yet."

If he can get through this night without seeing Stefan, it'll be a good night, even with all this shit happening.

"Did Damon try something?"

"No," Jeremy says. "I'm sure he will. He's with Elena right now so he's on his best behavior, but I've got my stake and lots of other stuff. There were some more vampires, but we're all alive. I was kind of hoping one of them would take Damon out, but no such luck. I can't kill him myself with Elena here. She's probably going to be offended all over again."

And they've come so far since.

"Probably," Tyler agrees. "Be careful."

"Yeah, yeah," Jeremy sighs. "There are so many people who want to kill me, but I'm okay. I lost my phone so I couldn't call you." And he's going to have to buy a new one with all the money he doesn't have.

"I've got your phone."

"Good," he says. "I can't afford a new one. Where's Bonnie?"

"Still at the school," Tyler says. "I think she's okay. Some of Kol's line were here. They almost ripped me apart, but my pack came through."

"You're with the pack?" Jeremy says. "Your ghosts are definitely better than mine."

"Jeremy!"

He turns around to see through the glass. Elena's facing the front door. It's wide open, but Damon lunges forward to slam it shut. There's someone on the other side of it, but Jeremy doesn't know who. Not a vampire surely. A shut door wouldn't do anything against them.

Glass breaks on the other end of the room and then comes Damon's voice. "_Fuck_."

"Jeremy?" Tyler questions.

"We've got it," Jeremy assures him, standing up.

"I can help you!"

"_We've got it_."

Tyler sounds reluctant and frustrated, but what else is new? "Look out for Kol," he says.

"Believe me, I'm looking out."

Jeremy slides Elena's phone into his pocket and pulls his gun from the waistband of his jeans. His hand is on the door handle when he hears the creaking of wood behind him. He spins around to point his gun at the person behind him.

Not a vampire.

A hunter.

"Connor," Jeremy says.

He's standing on the bottom step, his hands raised just slightly. They're empty, but Jeremy knows that doesn't mean he's harmless.

Connor gives his head a short nod. "Jeremy. That's my gun."

"Mine now."

There's more glass breaking from inside the house, and Jeremy fights the urge to look over his shoulder. Looking away from Connor isn't an option. There's a lot a hunter can do with a distracted opponent, and Jeremy's not about to fall into that hole. "Who's in there?" Jeremy demands.

"One of our brothers," Connor answers. "You've met before. Or maybe you don't remember, it's been awhile. Vaughn."

Jeremy remembers him, but Connor must not think so. "You and your buddy, Matt killed him when he showed up here. He came to kill Damon and Stefan, remember?"

"Yeah," Jeremy says.

"It's interesting that you killed him for doing the same thing you would later go on to do yourself," Connor says. He moves up a step, and Jeremy holds up a hand.

"I'll shoot," he warns.

"If you do then I can't help you."

"You can't help me anyway."

"There are vampires headed this way. Vaughn and I will help you kill them."

"Vaughn will be dead soon," Jeremy says. It's Vaughn versus Elena and Damon.

"No he won't," Connor says certainly. "But you'll be. Those vampires are coming."

From the house, Elena calls. "Jeremy!_ Come on_!"

"Those vampires are here," Connor says, with a slight smile.

Jeremy pulls his stake from his back pocket and tosses it to him. When he goes back into the house, Damon and Elena don't even see him. They're too busy trying not to get torn apart by the vampires coming in through the front door. They're a steady stream, all fanged out and feral and thirsting for blood. He's sure he's seen some of them before, but he doesn't have the time to pinpoint which alley it was.

Jeremy raises the gun and puts down one. Two. Three. They fall one after the other. The fourth catches on and moves fast enough that the bullet goes straight past him, and he slams into Jeremy so hard that it feels like the whole house shakes when he hits the floor.

Jeremy ignores the grinding of teeth above him, the hot breath against his cheek and the hands pulling at his clothes and clawing at his skin, and he tightens his hold on the gun. He presses the barrel to the vampire's temple and pulls the trigger. When the vampire slumps forward, Jeremy shoves him off and rolls to point the gun at his heart and send a bullet into it.

Jeremy sees Connor out of the corner of his eye, stabbing the stake through the heart of a curly haired vampire. Vaughn's on the other side of the room, throwing another vampire to the ground, and Damon's wiping off a bloody hand on his jeans. Jeremy turns, searching for Elena. There are so many vampires he can't see her, not at first, not until he sees the glint of the meat cleaver as it swings through the air, slicing cleanly through the neck of a vampire and sending his head flying off to bounce along the floor.

_Nice_.

Jeremy straightens up, looking for the next vampire, but there doesn't seem to be anymore. The floor is littered with bodies. They'll have a hell of a time cleaning this up. He drops his gun into the chair and combs his fingers through his hair, wondering how long this is going to go on for.

Elena places the meat cleaver on the counter and steps over the bodies of a few of the vampires. "Are you okay?"

Jeremy nods. "You?"

"Fine."

Jeremy sees Connor as if he's moving in slow motion, rising up over Elena's shoulder and throwing his stake. It turns in the air, flipping end over end. "Elena!"

She turns and her movement sends the stake into the wrong side of her chest. If she'd stayed in her spot, it would have surely hit her heart. She reaches to pull it out, and Jeremy lunges himself at Connor. He sees Jeremy coming and is ready to catch him. He throws him down on top of the coffee table which shatters on the impact and showers Jeremy in glass.

Some of it cuts into his palms, but Jeremy grips the largest piece he can see. The edge digs into his hand and makes him bleed, but he doesn't care. He has to pull himself out of the tangle of the metal frame, crawling along the carpet until he can stand, putting the throbbing of his spine out of his mind.

Somewhere to the right Jeremy hears Vaughn cry out. He and Damon are fighting, but Jeremy doesn't know when that started. At least Jeremy doesn't have to deal with Connor _and _Vaughn.

It's been awhile since Jeremy's fought someone who isn't so much stronger than him. Fighting Connor is just like punching anyone else, and it's refreshing to know that Connor's not going to come back at him with fangs.

Still, Connor's no slouch. He's a bit bigger than Jeremy is. He's been at this longer, and it shows. He maneuvers away from Jeremy's swipes with the glass, and when he catches Jeremy's arm, he dislocates the shoulder easily. Jeremy releases the glass and it falls to the floor.

Jeremy swallows down his pained cry and kicks out, catching Connor at the ankle. They both fall, and Jeremy tries to forget the improper placement of his shoulder to elbow Connor in the nose. The pain isn't as easy to forget.

Jeremy rolls away from Connor, reaching for another piece of glass. They're all too small to do any real damage so he gives that up. Instead he goes for the lamp on the table alongside the armchair, lifting it to throw it at Connor as he's getting to his feet. He blocks the brunt of the impact, but it distracts him enough for Jeremy to follow with a kick to Connor's stomach.

While he's doubled over, Jeremy raises a knee into Connor's face and hears the cracking of his nose. Connor must also be good at ignoring the pain he must be in. Jeremy sees the shine of the glass shard before Connor buries the pointed edge in his leg.

_Fuck_.

His leg gives underneath him and he falls, but he pushes himself backward, toward the chair where he left his gun. It's right there, all he's got to do is reach it.

Elena speeds past him to tackle Connor to the floor. She's fast, but Connor keeps away from her hands as best he can, careful not to let her get a grip on his neck. He smacks her hands away and lands a punch to Elena's throat that leaves her choking even though she doesn't need to breathe.

Jeremy's back hits the chair, and he reaches behind him. His fingers ghost over the barrel of the gun. When he gets it, he aims it at Connor's chest. A wooden bullet is still a bullet.

For a moment, Connor goes still, glaring at Jeremy as if he's daring him to follow through. Jeremy's hesitation must give him some kind of confidence because he steps forward, and Jeremy squeezes the trigger. A hole appears at the front of Connor's shirt followed by a spreading bloom of red. He hits the floor with a thump.

Jeremy lowers his arm as he leans back against the chair, breathing hard.

When he turns his head, he's staring at Vaughn and he jumps before he realizes he's dead, too. His blond hair is stained red with blood, and there's more blood in his mustache. His eyes stare lifeless at him. Damon blinks down at Jeremy briefly before walking away.

* * *

Jeremy's still got Elena's phone. He slumps into one of the chairs at the table and pulls it out to call Bonnie.

"Hi," she says. "How's it going?"

"Good," he says conversationally. "Taking care of business, you know. Hunters, vampires, hunters."

"Hunters?"

"Yes, my brothers in stakes," Jeremy says. "They really know how to hold a grudge, but don't worry about it, we're fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Bonnie says. "We're gonna help you soon, okay? Just hang in there."

"I'm hanging."

"What about Damon?" Bonnie asks.

"He's...here."

"What's he doing?"

"He's helping Elena clean up a mess," Jeremy says, his gaze cutting to the backyard where the two of them are carrying the bodies outside, "but we keep getting vampires in here so it's just going to get messed up again. I think they're just using it as an excuse not to be near me." He sighs as he stands to turn on the faucet, watching the water splash into the sink and spiral down the drain. "I don't know what Elena's...I don't know what he's telling her, and I don't know what she's thinking. I can't leave her here alone with all this stuff going on, but if Damon's gonna try something, I can't _stay_ here."

Ramona said Silas had come to Elena, had offered her Stefan and Damon again. She said no so that must mean she's _kind of_ over it, right? But that was when Stefan and Damon were very dead, not walking around again.

Maybe she's changed her mind with Damon right here in front of her.

"We'll figure something out," Bonnie says, "to get rid of him before he gets the chance to do anything. Just keep your distance. Don't be alone with him. Stay where Elena can see you. He won't kill you right in front of her."

"One time he did."

"I remember. Just hold onto your stake."

Jeremy laughs. "I didn't consider doing that."

"I saw Stefan earlier," Bonnie tells him.

"I don't know which one of us has it worse," Jeremy says. "What did he want?"

"To hear his own voice, but it's done."

"Is he dead?"

"No."

Jeremy sighs heavily. "So he'll be making a stop here to see Elena."

He hopes more than anything that Damon either leaves or gets killed before Stefan arrives. He can't deal with both of them at the same time. After all this time, with the two of them being dead, having them back is a transition Jeremy doesn't want to have to make.

"I should probably go," he says. "I should like, fortify the house or something. I'll see you later?"

"If we survive the night."

"We will," Jeremy says. "We've lived this long. Nothing can kill us now."

"Don't jinx it," Bonnie says. "I'll see you later? Come by my house when this is all done?"

"Yeah," he says. If this night's _ever_ over. "Bye."

* * *

Jeremy rolls Connor out onto the back porch, trying not to look too closely at the tattoo on his arm. It makes him feel bad somehow. They're not _that _different after all. Hunters are hunters, after all. They had the same goals, though killing Elena certainly wasn't on Jeremy's list. If Connor had thrown that stake at Damon, maybe Connor would be helping him roll Damon's ass out here instead.

Jeremy massages his sore shoulder while he looks. He hasn't asked Elena to let him have some of her blood yet, but he should. If more vampires come at them, he should be ready. And the limp he's working with won't help either, but he feels weird asking Elena with Damon there.

Damon tosses Vaughn onto the ground and turns back to the house, mounting the steps. He sidesteps Connor to continue inside. He doesn't speak to Jeremy. He hasn't since the woods. Jeremy doesn't know if he should be worried about that or not. Does it mean Damon's more or less dangerous? He couldn't shut up before they killed him, but now he's holding his tongue, reserving his words for Elena.

"Jeremy."

Or maybe not.

"What?" Jeremy says, turning around.

Damon stands in the doorway with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed, looking at Jeremy as if he's waiting for him to do something. But Jeremy's not going to do anything. He won't provoke it, won't start it. Damon will do that on his own. If he has to kill Damon again tonight, he's not going to make it possible for Elena to blame him for it. If Damon dies again tonight, it'll be because of Damon.

"Nice work," Damon says. Then he turns and goes back into the house.

_Fucking asshole_, Jeremy thinks, turning back to Connor's body. He kicks him down the stairs and onto the grass. They'll have to burn them. How they'll explain the fire to the neighbors, he doesn't know, but he doesn't care either anymore.

Something sharp touches him in his chest, the promise of a coming threat.

Jeremy turns and sees the blur of Damon's fangs before they're buried in his throat, and he's falling. The pain in his neck is more pressing not to mention Damon's fingers tugging at Jeremy's hand. He feels the ring sliding off his finger, but he doesn't see where Damon throws it. He blinks at that moment, and it's hard to get his eyelids back up.

He's so over vampires, especially the part where he gets bitten by them.

"Jeremy!"

It sounds like Matt. Where did Matt come from?

"No," Jeremy hears himself say. Damon will kill Matt without a second thought. But he still feels Matt's hands, rolling him over and pressing some kind of cloth to his neck. Jeremy takes away his bloody, trembling fingers and helps Matt hold it in place.

Matt's face swims over him. He's panicking. Jeremy can't blame him. He's panicking, too.

He's very aware of his missing ring and the chunk of throat that is missing. Damon leans over him and Matt, his mouth still bloody. He wipes the blood on the back of his hand and licks away what remains.

"It's okay, Jer," Matt says, pushing down harder on his neck. "Elena! _Elena!_"

Yes, Elena. Where's Elena? He can't remember if he heard her in the house, where she went. Did she go upstairs? Why did she go upstairs? Come back down. Come back down.

Please.

Come back down.

There's a gunshot, and Jeremy feels Matt flinch above him. His hold on Jeremy's neck slackens then comes back stronger than before.

"Leave," Elena says. "Or I will kill you."

She's talking to Damon. Jeremy wants to turn his head to see, but it hurts too badly.

Elena fires again, and Damon's answering cry tells Jeremy she hit him. It isn't fatal though because Damon speaks.

"I'm going," he says.

Damon's footsteps move away, down the steps. When the sound fades, Elena's wrist is in his mouth and blood coating his tongue in an instant. But it's not going to work. He's too far gone. He can feel himself dying. Elena realizes at the same time he does. The gun falls with a clatter to her side.

"Get his ring!" she says. Matt takes Jeremy's hand and presses it firmly to his neck, as if some of his strength will pass to Jeremy. When Matt breaks away, Jeremy's fingers go slack despite his best intentions. Matt's looking in the grass, and Elena examines the porch. "Where is it? _Where is it?"_

There's a flurry of movement, steps on the wooden boards, shadows that flit across the side of the house. Matt's and Elena's.

Jeremy's head feels foggy, and his body feels cold. He should have asked Elena for that blood sooner.

"I can't find it," Elena's saying, more to herself than to him. "I can't find it."

Elena's still looking, looking over the steps, around the potted plants, underneath the porch swing. She moves to the threshold, looking over into the house. It's not there. Maybe Damon threw it over into the next yard, maybe he took it with him. Who knows?

Who knows?

Jeremy's just so tired.

Elena comes back to press against his neck where his grip is faltering. "Just hold on a little longer. We'll find it."

"It won't be so bad," he says, "being a vampire." She'll help him. Tyler will help him. He'll be fine.

Elena smiles as she touches his face.

"I can't find it," Matt calls. "I can't find it!"

"I've got it." Someone else is on the steps. His voice is familiar. So familiar, but Jeremy's mind is too far gone. He feels like he's running in circles, chasing after threads that he can barely see much less grasp.

The someone kneels at Jeremy's side, taking his hand away from his neck to slide the ring onto his finger. Jeremy tries to turn his head, but it's hard to do. The pain is incredible. The someone leans further over him, dark blond hair and thin lips, a smile that for once actually appears genuine.

John Gilbert rests a hand on Jeremy's forehead. "You're gonna be okay."

This dying thing is really getting old.

* * *

Jeremy opens his eyes and he's staring at the ceiling. He's on the couch, his head propped up on the pillows. He feels...alive. When he balls his hand into a fist, he feels his ring, and he smiles and hopes this resurrection won't be the one that drives him to madness. He sits up and sees Elena and John at the window.

"What are you looking at?" he asks, pushing himself to his feet.

Elena turns around and closes the space between them with a few steps to fling her arms around his neck in a hug. Then she pulls away and turns his head to the side so she can examine his neck, as if she expects the bite to still be there. "I'm so glad you're okay," she says, hugging him again.

"Me, too," he says. "What's out there?"

Elena pulls him toward the window. The one on the other end of the room has been covered with a plastic garbage bag and tape. That's going to be costly to replace.

There's a woman standing across the street with her hands in the pockets of the coat she wears. It's too warm outside for it, but she doesn't seem to mind. Her hair is dark and straight and her skin pale, illuminated by the street lamp she stands beneath.

"It's Isobel," John says. As he says her name, she turns and starts off down the street.

"I guess she doesn't want to come in," Jeremy says.

John smiles weakly and reaches out to touch Jeremy's shoulder. "Feeling okay?"

Jeremy nods. "What did I miss?"

"There haven't been anymore vampires," Elena says, letting the curtain fall closed, "but...come see." She takes Jeremy's hand and pulls him toward the back door. He can smell smoke as he gets closer, and the smell of burning flesh smacks him in the face like it's something solid when he opens the door.

There's a fire outside and bodies are being heaped onto it. There are people standing around it. Matt's there alongside Alaric who squirts more lighter fluid onto the flames, making them leap higher. "Step back, Jenna," Alaric says. "I don't wanna get you."

Jenna's tugged gently away by another woman.

"Mom?" Jeremy says, feeling Elena's hand fall away. He almost stumbles down the steps as he goes to hug her.

Miranda Gilbert laughs into his ear, and he can't even remember the last time he heard that sound. She's just as warm, just as soft and _there_ as he remembers, as he'd hoped she'd be again after the accident. The same dark hair, hanging long. Shorter than Elena's, but it was Miranda that made Elena want to grow hers out anyway.

It takes Jeremy a moment to make out the man on the other side of the yard, who heaves another body onto the fire and wipes his hands off on his pants. Grayson doesn't very much resemble John, but Jeremy remembers how everyone used to say Jeremy was definitely his father's son. They're the ones who look alike.

"Jer," Grayson says, rounding the fire. "That ring's one hell of an heirloom, isn't it?"

* * *

Jeremy helps them with the fire. He's more occupied with the casual lingering of his dead family members, surrounding the fire like they're at a barbecue and not burning the bodies of vampires they had to kill tonight. Alaric throws the last one on, and finishes off the lighter fluid. Jeremy squints against the glare of the flames.

"Jeremy," Elena says, coming down the porch steps. She's been sitting on the bench with Miranda and Jenna, watching them. She extends her phone to him. "It's Bonnie."

Alaric flashes a knowing smile as Jeremy takes the phone from her. "Hey. Got some good news for me?"

"We're going to kill the vampires."

That is the _best_ news.

"Thank God," Jeremy says. "Damon's gone, but we haven't seen Stefan yet. And I don't want to after the shit Damon just pulled."

"You might be spared Stefan," she says. "That's why I'm calling. We're going to set them all on fire, but make sure Elena doesn't leave the house, okay? I can shield her better if she stays in one place."

Elena's still standing next to him, and she nods before she leaves, probably realizing that her eavesdropping could be called rude.

"She's not going anywhere," Jeremy assures her. "That whole bonfire thing isn't going to do much to an Original though, is it?"

"No," Bonnie says. "It'll burn them, kill them temporarily but...Has Kol tried something?"

"Not yet," Jeremy says, "that's what worries me. We don't have a way to kill him without the white oak stake." And Rebekah has that. Jeremy doubts she'll hand it over, even if they could find her. "Don't worry about it," he says quickly. "You do your thing, we'll do ours. Okay?"

"Okay," Bonnie says, though she doesn't sound totally convinced.

After he hangs up, Jeremy returns Elena's phone to her.

There are enough of them here to take on Kol, even without any vervain to use. Him, Elena, Matt, Alaric, even Jenna with her vampire strength, and John has to know how to use a stake. They just need to stall Kol long enough for the veil to be closed. If they can manage to snap his neck just once and keep it until this whole thing is over, they'll be fine. That is, if he even comes. What could be taking him so long anyway?

Jeremy glimpses a flicker of movement in the dark, slipping into shadow.

"Get in the house!"

No one asks for any explanation, but they all move for the back door. Jeremy brings up the rear, taking the steps two at a time. He knows it's Kol when a hand closes around his ankle and pulls. He falls, his hands clapping against the porch. When he turns over, Kol fixes him with a smile.

"Hello, old friend."

Jeremy kicks him in the face with both feet.

Kol lets him go, more out of surprise than actual pain. Jeremy crawls into the house anyway, relieved when he's over the threshold and being pulled up by Elena's reaching hand. Jenna closes the door in his face, but Kol breaks through it and sends Jenna flying through the air. She hits the wall, but is back on her feet in milliseconds, speeding across the room to make a grab for Kol, but he reaches to twist her head around. She falls in a heap that Kol steps over.

Matt aims Jeremy's gun at Kol's chest. The two rounds he fires hardly do anything except annoy him. Then the gun fires nothing. It's out. Kol goes for Matt next, but Alaric gets in the way. At least he got to keep the whole super strong vampire thing in death. That helps. But Kol manages to get away from him.

"Now this fight may actually be interesting," Kol says.

"Were you embarrassed before?" Jeremy says. "Getting killed by a human and new vampire?"

Kol cracks a smile. "The past is in the past, darling. That'll soon be rectified anyway."

A bloody arrowhead protrudes from Kol's throat, followed by another that juts through his shoulder. Kol pulls that one out first. The one at his throat is trickier.

"Jeremy," Grayson says. "Use this," he says, pressing the meat cleaver into Jeremy's hands. "Take his head off."

"He'll see it coming."

"No, he won't," Grayson promises. "John will handle it. When you get your chance, take it."

John. Where is John?

Jeremy can't see him, and he doesn't know where he went.

The meat cleaver is a good weight. If he swings it right, puts enough of his weight behind it, he can take Kol's head right off. He doesn't know if that'll be as good as killing him or not, but it'll definitely buy them some time. He just has to make it count.

Jeremy sees the front door open. Caroline stands in the threshold, looking horrified at what she finds. Kol gets the arrow out of his throat, but he's caught off guard as Caroline launches herself at him. He shakes off his surprise to swat her away like a fly.

Meanwhile, Jeremy's still looking for this chance he's supposed to be seeing. He sees John at the bottom of the stairs with Elena, who yanks something from his hands. A small plastic baggie with something inside it. Herbs of some kind. She dumps them into her hand, making a quiet hissing sound as they touch her skin.

Vervain.

"Elena, let me-" John begins, but Elena's already running to pick up where Caroline left off. She can't expect to get any further than she did, but she goes anyway. Locking her arms around Kol's neck, she shoves her hands into his face, into his eyes.

Kol's face is red and he's screaming, but he still manages to hit Elena hard enough to get her off of him. Jeremy doesn't know if she's conscious or not when he lunges for Kol, who rubs furiously at his eyes in a vain attempt to clear his vision.

If Kol even can, he doesn't get the chance before Jeremy swings the cleaver at his neck. It's not the cleanest cut. He has to do it a second time, moving out of Kol's reach before he can try to grab for the handle. Blood spatters onto Jeremy's shirt and face, and Kol falls to the floor. His head rolls a couple feet away to rest at Miranda's feet.

* * *

They cover Kol's body with a sheet and put his head on the other side of the room, just in case some kind of reattachment thing starts happening. They take turns checking to make sure it's not growing back.

"That was...great," Jenna says, massaging her neck and swallowing down the blood Elena offers her.

"You did great," Alaric says encouragingly.

"Yeah, right," Jenna says. "Pour me some wine?"

Alaric gets up to find some as the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it," Caroline says. "It can't be any vengeful vampires. They're not big on etiquette are they?"

"What are you gonna major in?" Grayson asks Elena before he dumps some glass into the trash.

"English."

"I never thought you'd be the tattoo type," Miranda says, eyeing Jeremy's Mark. The corner of her mouth are turned upward into a smile.

"I could have seen him getting one," Jenna says, folding her legs underneath her body. "It would be a little redundant now. And I don't know where you'd put it."

"Guys," Caroline says from the door. She looks pale.

"Who is it?" Jeremy asks.

"It's Stefan," she says. "Should I open it?"

Elena stands. "I'll do it."

Jeremy stands as she does to stand near the door. If Stefan's there to hurt him, it's better to minimize the damage. They don't need anything happening to the rest of them not after Kol's just knocked them around. Elena opens the door just slightly and puts all her weight against it, as if that'll keep Stefan from forcing his way in here if he wants to.

Jeremy can see clear over her head to Stefan, who only looks at him briefly before dropping his gaze to Elena. "Hi," he says.

"Hi," she says. "You can't come in. Damon was already here. He went after Jeremy, and we're not having any repeats so-"

"Okay," he says. "I don't care about Jeremy. I care about you."

Some things never change.

John is on the other side of the door, his knuckles white because he's gripping his stake so hard.

A few more minutes and Bonnie will be putting Stefan and all the other vampires to the torch. Just a few more minutes.

"I just wanted to see you," he says.

Elena gives her head a curt nod.

"It's good to see you," Stefan continues. "I've missed you."

Elena nods her head again but doesn't speak. Maybe it's awkward with Jeremy standing right here. He takes a step back, glancing to Caroline who is perched on the arm of the chair next to Matt. The rest of the family is on the couch, Alaric passing Jenna her wine which she doesn't drink.

"Are you okay?" Stefan asks. "Do you need help? I know the other vampires are-"

"We can handle it," Elena assures him. "You should go."

Stefan looks down at the porch and swallows his words. "Okay," he agrees. "I'm glad you're alright."

Elena moves to close the door, but Stefan blocks it with the toe of his shoe. Jeremy's hand leaps to the gun, now reloaded and back in the waistband of his jeans.

"I love you," Stefan says. "I'll always love you."

Jeremy keeps his hand on his gun as he looks toward his parents as they

Elena isn't saying anything, but Jeremy turns back around at the sound of her gasp. She lets the door fall open. Stefan is burning. He seems surprised at first, like he doesn't quite believe what's happening to him, but he begins to scream.

Elena steps backward so suddenly she bumps into Jeremy's arm.

Behind him, Jeremy hears Matt curse and a scurry of movement. There's heat to the front and the back of him. Kol must be burning, too, but Jeremy doesn't look away from Stefan.

Grayson and Matt are putting out the fire, but the flames are persistent. They busy themselves instead with making sure it doesn't spread anywhere else.

Stefan's curling himself into a ball on the porch when Elena closes the door.

* * *

Jeremy wonders how possible it would be to bring them back. Or how _impossible_. They're sitting in the living room together. Jenna's drinking her wine and Elena's on the floor next to their mom, showing her prom pictures on her cell phone and telling her about school. Caroline and Matt are gone. They left to reunite with her parents and the deputies. Jenna's pouring more wine and Grayson's examining the back door to see how fucked up it is.

It's all so normal except for the fact that most of the people in this room are dead.

But what if it doesn't have to stay that way?

"I'm proud of you," John says as Jeremy joins him on the couch. "I know my approval isn't one of those things you've spent your whole life working for, but I'm still proud."

"You're only proud because I killed Stefan and Damon," Jeremy says, but he's smiling.

John laughs. "I don't deny it. If I can't be proud of you for taking them out, what can I be proud of you for?"

"My grades."

"I'm proud of you for those, too."

Elena's phone is ringing in Jeremy's pocket. "Hold on. It's Bonnie." He stands to go into the kitchen.

"Oh, it's _Bonnie_?" Alaric says. "Hear that, Jenna? It's _Bonnie_."

"Who is it?" Jenna says, pouring more wine into her glass. "_Bonnie_?"

"_Bonnie_?" Miranda says.

It turns into an obnoxious chorus of "Bonnie", and Jeremy rolls his eyes. "I'm walking away," he says as Jenna and Miranda toast one another over their laughing. He heads upstairs instead, just to make sure they won't eavesdrop.

"Hey," he says, laughing a little.

"Hi," Bonnie says. "I'm calling Tyler."

Of the three-ways they've had (well, that _one)_ this one's pretty tame. He almost says so to Bonnie, but that might embarrass her so he holds his tongue, and he's not positive no one downstairs is listening.

"Finally," Tyler says, when he answers. "I've been calling."

"I know," Bonnie says. "We've been busy."

"Same," Jeremy says.

"I wanted to ask you about the whole bringing back the dead thing," Tyler says. "How does that work?"

At least they're on the same page about that. It takes Bonnie a long time to respond. That means it's bad.

"It doesn't," she says.

"Silas said-" Tyler says.

Fucking Silas.

"If they come back, they become enslaved to the witch who resurrected them," Bonnie explains. "Silas. Me. They can't come back. They won't be...them. Silas lied."

Jeremy can still hear his family downstairs. His _dead_ family.

"Of course he did," he says bitterly.

"I have to stop him," Bonnie says. "Aja and the other witches are back, too. They're with Silas now. If he resurrects them, he has all of their power at his disposal. They'll just be the first. With their power he can lower the veil again and again and again until he gets as many people as he wants."

"You need to use the cure," Tyler says.

Jeremy's figured that as well. She's asking their permission.

"I _can_ stop him. I've figured out a way to get him to take it, and I think it'll work. If I do it fast enough, he won't have time to fight back."

Jeremy stays quiet, waiting for Tyler to say something first. He's waiting for the disappointment to ebb away, to become something else, anything else. Perhaps gratitude because he got even this small amount of time with his family again. But disappointment is persistent and unyielding, and it refuses to go.

"I need your answer," Bonnie says, when neither of them have said anything.

"Use it," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas win."

"Klaus knows about Kol," Tyler says.

"He was always going to find out," Jeremy says. "We can't let Silas do this though. If we do, it won't matter what Klaus does to us. We don't even _know_ what Silas will do. We'll find another way. There's gotta be another way."

Tyler must not be as optimistic because he's not speaking. Maybe his disappointment is even harder to shake than Jeremy's. If his whole pack is there with him, Jeremy can't blame him. There have been so many people they've been forced to say goodbye to because of Klaus, and they're going to have to do it again. He almost thinks it may have been better not to see them at all, not to have this time. It just reopens the old wounds.

"Tyler?" Bonnie says. "Are you still there?"

"Do it."

"Are you sure?" Bonnie asks.

_Don't ask him that_, Jeremy thinks. _He'll change his mind_. Jeremy might change his mind, too. "Yeah. Use it."

"I have to close the veil," she says. "It has to be as soon as I kill him or else he'll stay here. But I'll give you as much time as I can," she adds.

"Thanks," Tyler says. "Be careful."

"I will," she promises. "Bye."

Tyler hangs up but Jeremy's stays on the line, waiting to see if Bonnie has anything else to say. She does. "We'll figure something else out," she promises. He can tell she believes it. There's always another way, there has to be one.

"I know," he says. It can't be over, not after everything they've gone through to get here. "I should go. My family's here. I want to say goodbye."

* * *

Goodbye ends up being nothing more than sitting together in the living room. The wine is all gone, the glasses are empty, and they're sitting in silence, just waiting for them all to disappear. Jeremy's on the floor where the coffee table used to be, but it's warped frame has been moved to the side of the room, leaving plenty of space for Jeremy to sit.

"Thanks for coming," Elena says, where she sits in the curve of Miranda's arm on the couch. She looks like she's a little kid again, back when they were both small enough to be fit into all the crevices of this house and tiny enough to burrow into their parents' arms and feel safe.

"I wish you could stay," Jeremy says.

It's nice having parents around. He feels like a kid again, not like so much of an adult, not like so much is resting on him. But when they're gone, he'll feel that way all over again. He and Elena will go back to taking care of themselves.

"Take care of each other," Miranda says, like she can hear what he's thinking. "Okay?" She touches Jeremy's hand.

"We will," Jeremy promises.

Miranda smiles and leans forward to kiss his forehead and then Elena's. Maybe she feels like it's coming, like something is changing. She leans back against the couch. "Love you."

Elena wipes her eyes even though the tears haven't started falling yet. By the time she lowers her hand back to her lap, the living room is empty, and it's just them and the broken windows, trashed door, and empty wine glasses.

Elena reaches for his hand and entwines their fingers.


	36. Ways

Ways

Tyler waits in the living room for Bonnie to return. He rereads the note left for him, trying to figure out if it was Hayley or Mason who wrote it.

_Don't do it_.

Maybe it's Hayley's looping handwriting, but Tyler can't remember ever seeing her write something down. And he can't remember Mason's handwriting either. He wishes he could, so he could put a voice to the words.

_Don't do it._

The lock twists on Bonnie's door and she steps inside. It feels like it's been hours - days - since he's seen her. Her body looks weighed down, like Tyler's feels. He just wants to sleep, and now that he's seen her he feels like he can. When she sees him, she lets out a long breath and closes the door.

"Hi," he says. "I am so-"

He's interrupted by her mouth. And her tongue. And the feel of her teeth as they scrape across his bottom lip. And her hands on either side of his face, tilting his lips to hers so she can kiss him harder. One minute she's at the door and then she's right in front of him and kissing him and all he can think about is their cure being gone, their one chance at killing Klaus being gone, and the note in his hand telling him not to do the one thing he can do to make sure all of this hasn't been for nothing.

Tyler crumples the napkin in his hand before letting it fall from his grip on the couch. His arms go around Bonnie's waist instead as he tries not to think about it. He has plenty of time to think about that.

Bonnie pulls away from him. "I'm sorry," she says, running her hand across his cheek, across his ear. "I _promise_ we'll find another way to kill Klaus." She looks so earnest, he almost believes her, even though every instinct Tyler has is telling him they've run out of options.

"Okay," he says, smiling at her smile. "So you did it, huh? You killed Silas?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. Her hands slide to his shoulders and she comes forward, settling herself on his lap. "He's gone now."

"Good," Tyler says. It's bittersweet really.

"Tyler," Bonnie says, feeling for his hand and folding it up in hers. "I _promise_."

"I know," he says. "I know you do. I believe you." He tries to change the subject. He doesn't want to tell her yet, what he wants to do. It's been a long night and they'll have all of tomorrow to wrap their heads around his plans because he's sure it's going to take some serious effort on Bonnie's and Jeremy's parts to get onboard. "Where's Lucy? And your mom?"

"They're at the witch house," Bonnie says. "They were burying Silas' body when I left. They told me to just come home to get some sleep. I'm so tired."

"Me, too," he agrees. "Can you work some magic to get me home? Klaus is probably lurking somewhere, and I don't want him to kill me." He tries to say it lightly, but Bonnie's not taking it that way.

"Stay here," she says. "No one's gonna care. Unless you want to be by yourself."

"I don't," he admits. "They were all here." Cora's movie was still playing after they were gone. Tyler had to turn it off. " I wish - I wish you could have met them. I mean _really_ met them. They would have loved you. You and Jeremy."

"We would have loved them, too."

Hayley would have liked Bonnie. She would have liked her guts and her loyalty and her heart. He remembers what Hayley said, how Bonnie won't sign on to this plan of his. They have that in common.

"You got your bracelet back," Tyler says, reaching for Bonnie's wrist. He turns it over in his hands to see the writing catch the light. "Jeremy'll be happy about that."

"I know I am," Bonnie says, leaning her head against his neck. "Jeremy said he'd come over when this was over so he'll be here soon. I just want to make sure we're all okay."

"I'm fine," Tyler says. "Are you?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "It's just been a long night. A lot happened. It was weird seeing them all again, you know? And then saying goodbye."

The front door opens, and Jeremy enters, raising his hand in a wave. He looks a bit of a mess with his dirt stained, bloody shirt, but he's definitely alive. That's all that matters. Bonnie gets up to hug him despite his appearance and plants a kiss on his lips.

"Run into any trouble out there?" Tyler asks, as he crumples up the napkin and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans.

"Nope," Jeremy says. "Elena drove me. She's parked outside so I can't stay long."

"What happened to you though?" Bonnie asks, tugging on his reddened shirt.

"Well, first there was Connor then there was Damon then there was Kol," Jeremy says. "I've been very busy tonight, and I'm exhausted."

"What did Damon do?"

"Nearly killed me, nothing new," Jeremy says with a wave of his hand. "I'm fine. We're all fine, right? No permanent damage done? Everyone got all their limbs? Ty?"

"I'm good."

"Good," Jeremy says. "I gotta go. I need to sleep and so do you guys." He kisses Bonnie again before turning for the door.

"Watch out for Klaus," Tyler calls after him.

"We are," Jeremy says. Bonnie watches him leave from the door. When Tyler hears Elena's car pulling away from the curb is when Bonnie closes the door and turns back around to face him.

"Bed?" she says, holding out her hand.

He stands up to entwine their fingers.

Lying in the dark, Bonnie asleep in his arms, the words bounce around in Tyler's head. They sound in Hayley's voice and in Mason's.

_Don't do it_.

* * *

When Bonnie wakes up, Tyler's fingers are combing through her hair and he's eerily silent even after Bonnie's certain he knows she's awake. But the silence is nice and its comforting. Sunlight pours in through the windows. Despite their late night, they're still up pretty early, and Bonnie knows she's not getting back to sleep.

"It still wasn't the worst night we've ever had," she says, her cheek pressed to Tyler's chest. It vibrates underneath her when Tyler laughs.

"It's definitely in the top ten though," he says. "Or maybe the bottom ten."

Bonnie lets her hand travel underneath his shirt. His skin is warm where she's been laying against him.

"I killed Damon," Tyler says. "He found me, and he was looking for a fight so I killed him."

She lifts her head so she can look at his face. "That's hot."

He smiles and runs his fingers through her hair again. "You killed an immortal witch. _That's_ hot."

"It is, isn't it?"

Tyler nods. "We're both just so hot."

Bonnie hums quietly then clears her throat, resting her chin on his chest. "My mom knows about us. The three of us."

"You told her?"

"No," she says quickly. "Lucy did."

"You told Lucy?"

"No. She could just _tell_."

Tyler starts laughing, and Bonnie rolls her eyes. As long as she doesn't have to talk about it with Abby or Lucy, she's fine. She can go on pretending like neither of them knows for the foreseeable future. She doubts Abby will be in a hurry to bring it up to her, and Lucy's already decided that a big discussion isn't necessary.

"Think they'll tell your dad?"

"I hope not," Bonnie says. Her dad just might want to sit down and talk about it. She can't imagine the lecture that will bring. "That won't help us with getting him on board the living together thing."

A shadow crosses over Tyler's face, and he shifts underneath her. "What's wrong?" she asks. "Do you not want to do it anymore?"

It seems like it's been a long time since they agreed to everything, but it was just last night, back when Bonnie was Prom Queen and Matt was Prom King. That was back when she was wearing her beautiful dress and sitting in Tyler's bedroom making plans for the future. It doesn't feel like that was just yesterday.

"No, I do," Tyler says quickly. He runs his fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. "I really do. I just...I have an idea."

"About what?"

"About Klaus."

Bonnie cocks her head to the side curiously. She thought this alternative plan thing would end up falling on her. How did Tyler manage to find something they can use so soon? "What is it?"

Tyler inclines his head to kiss her first, drawing her bottom lip between his teeth. "We should call Jeremy."

* * *

Jeremy returns to Bonnie's house when he gets his summons, finding Bonnie and Tyler in the kitchen with their breakfast: cereal for Bonnie and a bloodbag for Tyler. Lucy and Abby leave as Jeremy comes in, citing grocery shopping and other errands. Maybe Bonnie just encouraged them to leave so they could have some privacy. Abby looks at them strangely as she passes, lingering in the door before Lucy calls her away impatiently.

"What was that about?" Jeremy asks, sitting down between Bonnie and Tyler at the table.

"They know we're Bonnie's boyfriends," Tyler says before he finishes up the last of his blood.

"You told them?" Jeremy demands.

"No," Bonnie says. "Lucy figured it out then she told my mom. So they know."

Jeremy shakes his head down at the table. "Well, that's awkward. Can I have some of that?" He nods down to Bonnie's cereal, and she passes him her spoon.

"You have an idea," Bonnie says, looking to Tyler expectantly. "What is it?"

Tyler moves awkwardly in his seat, as if he's looking for a way to begin. "You're not gonna like it," he says warningly.

"Getting off to a good start then, aren't we?" Jeremy says, spooning cereal into his mouth.

Tyler leans forward, placing his palms flat on the table before he speaks. "The spell to put Klaus into another person's body. We did it before and-"

"No." Bonnie's voice is instantly hard, her tone clipped and certain.

"I didn't finish."

"You don't get to finish," she says. "We're not doing that."

Jeremy drags the spoon through the cereal. The last time that happened it was pretty temporary. It barely lasted a day, but Klaus' body was out of commission so he got to run around in Tyler's for a few hours. And Tyler was wherever it was Tyler was: not here.

"It's the only option we have," Tyler goes on. "And we know it works. If we do it right this time, if we make sure Klaus can't just walk around, we'll be fine."

"No," Bonnie repeats.

"We should at least talk about it."

"What's there to talk about?" Jeremy asks, dropping the spoon into the cereal. Some milk splashes out onto the table. "You want Klaus to be put in your body and then you want us to incapacitate you somehow, right? For how long? Indefinitely? Forever?"

"We used the one way we had to kill him," Tyler says. "This way is as good as its gonna get."

Bonnie gets up from the table. She turns to face the refrigerator, refusing to look at him. "What about California?" she asks suddenly, whirling back around. "What about all that stuff you said? The ocean and the apartment? Berkeley?"

Tyler looks to Jeremy, but he doesn't really know why. It's not like Jeremy's gonna help him in this particular fight.

"Klaus is going to kill all of us," Tyler says. "If we don't do this, he will. I won't get to Berkeley anyway and neither will you."

"Oh, so you're doing this for us?" Bonnie says, folding her arms across her chest defiantly.

"Yes."

"No, you're not," Jeremy says. "you're doing this because you want Klaus to pay and you're more than willing tosacrifice yourself to get there."

"That is not-"

"When the hybrids were going to do that, you wouldn't let them," Bonnie says, "and now you want to?"

"I don't _want_ to," Tyler says, "but I have to."

"Either way it's bullshit," Jeremy says.

Tyler glares in his direction.

"You don't have to do anything," Bonnie says. "There's another way."

"What other way?" Tyler snaps. "We used the cure on Silas. We don't have it anymore which means we _can't _kill Klaus. We lost our _way_."

"I don't know yet," Bonnie snaps, "but there is one. Just _wait_."

"We can't wait forever," Tyler points out.

"I know!"

Tyler looks down at his hands, appearing abashed. He takes in a deep breath before speaking again. He talks slowly, as if he's choosing his words very carefully. "I'm not trying to make you angry. I'm just-"

"You thought we'd be happy to hear you want to essentially kill yourself so we can _kind of_ kill Klaus?" Bonnie says.

"No, but I thought you'd listen."

"You thought wrong," she snaps. "We're done talking about it."

"I'm not," Tyler says.

"I am." To prove her point, Bonnie marches upstairs without a second glance. Upstairs, her bedroom door slams shut. At the sound, Tyler looks to Jeremy as if he expects a more understanding response.

"It's not an option, Ty," he says, picking up the spoon again.

Tyler makes an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. "Do you not want to kill Klaus anymore? Because this is the best way to do it. It's the closest we're going to come to having him dead. Isn't that what you want? What we've _all_ wanted? We've been working toward this ever since we killed Stefan, and now you two don't want it anymore?"

Tyler's making it really hard for Jeremy to enjoy his cereal. "No," he says. "Klaus can live out the rest of his immortal life if the only way to get rid of him is to get rid of you, too. It's not worth it."

Tyler reaches to grip Jeremy's hand, the one not holding the spoon. His grip is iron, and Jeremy feels his bones grinding together. "It is," he insists. "_It is_. Klaus ruined my life. And it's my life I'll be sacrificing so I think it's my decision to make."

Jeremy yanks his hand away and drops the spoon again. Fuck the cereal. "Then why did you ask us at all? And who's gonna do the spell Tyler? You're not a witch, and Bonnie's not gonna help you. Are you gonna ask Lucy? Because she won't help you either. Did you honestly think we were going to be okay with this?"

"I thought you guys wanted to get rid of Klaus as much as I do."

"We do," Jeremy says, "we just don't want to have to lose you to do it."

"If it's the only way-"

"Tyler," Jeremy says, holding up his hand. "When you say stupid things, I stop listening. I'm not listening anymore. It was one thing when you were willing to sit in Bonnie's bedroom for an indefinite amount of time because you didn't want us to kill Kol. That was very noble of you. That's your thing, I get it. But there's no reason you should have to sacrifice anything just to kill Klaus."

"_Just_ to kill Klaus?" Tyler says. "Like it's some little thing that doesn't matter? Like it's just easy to go back after all this? To let Klaus live?"

"No," Jeremy says. "That's not what I'm saying. I want him dead, too. You _know_ I do. He killed Jenna. I want him dead for her, for me, for Bonnie, and for _you_. But I want you alive for you, too." He sighs deeply. "We'll find something else, okay? There's always something else, but this something else won't require your personal sacrifice. It's not gonna happen, Ty."

Tyler leans back in his chair, staring at his fingers as they trace along the table's surface, drawing invisible lines.

"I killed an entire line of vampires for you," Jeremy reminds him. "Bonnie's got the body of some skeezeball she killed for you in her backyard. I don't know why you thought we'd jump on this train or why you're so surprised that we won't. We'd do anything for you, but not this."

Tyler keeps drawing his lines.

"I feel like I'm writing you a love letter right now and you're not even hearing me," Jeremy says. "Give me something here."

Tyler laughs.

"I'll take that," Jeremy says. "I've gotta go home. The house is still pretty fucked up. I'm gonna go say bye to Bonnie."

She's in her room, and she appears to be cleaning. Jeremy can't tell _what_ she's cleaning since it mostly consists of her moving things from one side of the room to the other, taking things from her closet to stuff into her chest of drawers.

"Don't tell me he convinced you," she says, putting a hand on her hip.

"Nope," Jeremy says. "I was coming to say goodbye. I have to get home and help Elena fix the house."

Bonnie comes forward to hug him, one of her hands stroking the back of his neck. He loves that. "I think I might have gotten through to him," he says. "I'll try again later, once it's sunken in how stupid he is."

Bonnie pulls back but keeps her arms around his neck. "You think that'll work?"

"It's hard to tell," he admits. "He's an idiot, so we'll have to wait and see, but he's not going anywhere. Okay?"

"Okay."

Jeremy smiles as he leans down to kiss her. They haven't had as many chances to kiss lately. He misses it.

When he leaves, Tyler hasn't moved from his spot at the kitchen table.

* * *

Tyler stays downstairs for awhile longer after Jeremy goes, but he hears Bonnie moving around upstairs and eventually goes up. She pretends she doesn't see him standing in the door. "Bonnie," he says finally. "Can we talk?"

"Not if it's about your stupid idea."

Tyler steps into her room and goes to sit at the edge of her bed. Eventually she gets tired of ignoring him.

"I can't believe this is even an option for you," she says.

"Why?"

"Because it's..._dumb_."

"I just can't do this thing where he's still alive after everything," Tyler says. "I can't do that. If we can't kill Klaus, we should at least _stop_ him."

"But why does it have to be you?"

"Because...I'm okay with it."

"But _why_ are you okay with it?"

"Because we can't even go to school on Monday because Klaus might come after us. Because I want to stop Klaus and this was my idea so it's not fair to ask someone else to do the hard part, and because I hate him. I really hate him, more than I hated Damon and Stefan even. I _really_ hate him."

"So much that you'll go down just to take him with you?"

"Yeah."

Bonnie looks sad as she comes to sit down next to him, and she takes his hand.

"If there is no other way," Tyler says, "if we run, he'll just chase us. We'll run from him forever, and we'll be looking over our shoulders forever. You can't go to Berkeley and have the ocean and the apartment if you're running. Neither can I. I want you to have it, I want Jeremy to have his senior year, and I want my mom to be able to come home. You all deserve that."

"So do you."

"I know," he says. "I want it, all of it."

"Then have it."

"It's not that easy. I can't _enjoy _it with Klaus out there somewhere."

"Even if we can't kill Klaus," Bonnie says. "There are ways to keep him away from us. I can protect us."

"It's not just us being in danger," Tyler says. "It's Klaus being alive. He doesn't deserve to live. He deserves to die. And if he's alive, I just know I won't be able to let it go. But if he's in my body, all you need to do is stake me. Then I'm out of commission until someone takes out the stake and no one will take it out if you put me in a box and throw me into the ocean or something."

"I'm not throwing you into the ocean."

"That was just an example."

"Do you _hear_ yourself?"

He does.

"I hate Klaus, too," Bonnie says, tightening her hold on his fingers. "But I love you, and I love you more than I hate him. When we started this it was you and me, and then it was you and me and Jeremy. That's how it's gonna end. All three of us together and alive, okay?"

When he doesn't say anything she lets out a frustrated sigh. "At least let me look for another way first before we start talking about which ocean we're gonna dump you in," she says. "Fair enough?"

Tyler nods. "Yeah."

Bonnie kisses his cheek. "Thank you. Now get up, there's something we have to do."

"What?"

"We have to get Klaus off our backs," she says. "We can't have him trying to kill us while we work, can we?"

* * *

When Bonnie finds Klaus, he's sprawled across his sofa with a glass of amber colored liquid in hand. He seems vaguely interested in her approach, but doesn't get up. "Yes, I suspected you'd survived the night," he says. "Your boyfriends, too."

"That's what I'm here to talk to you about," Bonnie says, moving to stand alongside the sofa. She's within arm's reach. If Klaus wanted to try something with her, he could. She wouldn't be surprised if he did, but he'd certainly be surprised by what he got if he did anything she didn't want him to.

"Are you going to try to convince me not to kill you and your pets?" Klaus asks. "You'll have to offer me something _substantial _to get me to shelf that plan, little witch. Jeremy will be annoying to kill, I do admit, with the ring and the curse, but I'll manage. Tyler on the other hand will be simple. Tell him to start running, love. I'll give him a head start."

"You're not going to kill anyone," Bonnie says, "and Tyler's not going anywhere."

Klaus is up and a hand is locked around her throat in seconds, but he doesn't squeeze. He could snap her neck - or at least try. He doesn't. Instead he pulls her closer to him so she can feel his breath on her face. "Don't test me, Bonnie."

"I wouldn't dare." Bonnie closes her eyes, pictures stone walls and a dirt floor, the round entrance of the tomb. She reaches up to grip Klaus' wrist. She just has to maintain contact. The air compresses around them and she feels the magic as it carries them away, folding them up and then releasing them once they've reached their destination.

Klaus lets her go, more out of surprise than mercy. The smell of damp earth invades Bonnie's nose as she backs away from him in a hurry, until she's on the other side of the threshold. She's just crossed it when Klaus speeds forward with a menacing cry and strikes an invisible barrier between them.

"Let me out of here, witch," he snarls.

Bonnie examines the entryway to the tomb and smiles at the unyielding spellwork. This will certainly do, for now at least.

"No," she says. "You said so yourself, you're going to come after me and Tyler and Jeremy, so why would I _ever_ let you out? Make yourself at home, Klaus."

With a wave of her hand, the rock replaces itself in front of the tomb, and Bonnie turns to leave. Klaus screams the whole time. When she gets outside, Jeremy's leaning on the hood of her car. Tyler's sitting in the passenger seat with the door open. "How'd it go?" Jeremy asks.

"He's in there." At least until they figure out a way to kill him. Until then Klaus will spend his time in the tomb, not being a danger to anyone. And by the time they open that tomb back up to kill him, hopefully he'll be feeling the hunger so intensely he won't be much of a challenge.

And at least she's removed some of the urgency from Tyler's stupid plan. Klaus can't get to any of them from inside a tomb so they're free to find alternatives now, and those alternatives won't have anything to do with Tyler not being around anymore.

Bonnie moves to get into the car, and Jeremy opens the door to slide into the backseat. "You know," he says, "he could stay in there forever." He's talking to Tyler who faces forward, blinking toward the tomb.

"He could," Tyler agrees.

But that wouldn't satisfy him either.

He wants Klaus' blood, but Bonnie doesn't know how to give it to him. Yet.

* * *

Of all the things Bonnie _doesn't_ want to see as soon as she steps into school, Rebekah is near the top of the list. Still, she's there as soon as Bonnie comes in, and she falls into step alongside her. "Good morning, Bonnie."

"Oh, you're back?" Bonnie says dully. "It's been awhile." Rebekah trails her to her locker, watching while Bonnie turns the combination lock.

"Yes, it has," Rebekah agrees. "Silas is dead."

"He is," Bonnie agrees as her locker pops open. "And the cure's gone."

Rebekah leans against the row of lockers, her arms folded across her chest. "Disappointing."

And Rebekah's brothers are still dead, Elijah's still in his coffin, and Klaus is safe for the foreseeable future though he's slowly dessicating in a tomb, but still. None of them got what they wanted after all.

"I went looking for Nik this morning," Rebekah says. "I can't find him anywhere."

"Not my problem," Bonnie says, picking out her books for class and dropping them into her bag. Rebekah watches her.

"I know you've done something to him," she says, "but don't fret. I'm not interested in seeing him again. He was quite cross with me for hiding what happened to Kol, you understand."

"I do."

"I was hoping we could perhaps come to another agreement," Rebekah begins, but Bonnie holds up a hand to stop her.

"You have nothing that I want," she says. "So why would I do that?" Rebekah's silence is telling. Bending down, Bonnie zips up her bag. Rebekah can't offer her anything right now, but maybe later? Maybe when they find that way to kill Klaus? "When you have something I need, I'll let you know."

"So no hard feelings then?"

"Hard feeling related to you leaving me and Jeremy in Silas' tomb and taking off with the cure and giving it to the immortal witch who wanted to take over the world with a resurrected army? No there are no hard feelings about that."

Rebekah purses her lips. "Your sarcasm is unnecessary. I did what I thought was best. Silas seemed like a good avenue to try if I wanted to see my brothers again. Of course that proved to just be another silly dream of mine."

"Do you have a lot of those?" Bonnie asks as she slings her bag onto her shoulder.

Rebekah rolls her eyes.

"If it makes you feel any better," Bonnie says, "if Silas had brought Kol or Finn back they would have ended up his lapdogs anyway. It's a good thing they stayed dead."

"I appreciate that lackluster attempt at making me feel better," the Original says, "but that doesn't make me feel much of anything. I would have preferred if Silas and all the superstitions surrounding him were less...accurate."

Bonnie slams her locker shut. "He was a witch. Superstition's kind of our thing."

_We are all made of superstition. _

Rebekah's nodding her head in agreement. "You think I would have recalled that."

_I know you believe that._

"I have to go," Bonnie says. She doesn't give Rebekah a chance to respond before she turns the corner and starts toward Tyler's locker. He's knocking it closed with his elbow when she reaches him.

"We have to go," she says.

"We just got here," he says.

"Yeah, I know, but we still have to go."

Tyler frowns at her and slings his backpack onto his shoulder. "Go where?"

"North Carolina."

* * *

Tyler and Jeremy insist on waiting until after school. Of all the times for them to start caring about their attendance, it has to be now. The drive feels like it lasts ages, and Bonnie's anxious the entire time. When they arrive at the house, Bonnie leads Jeremy and Tyler up the front steps and bangs on the door.

She hears Clay coming from behind the door, and she taps her foot impatiently. When the door opens, he makes a quiet _hmph_ sound. He's wearing sunglasses today and an ugly shirt patterned with leaves. He doesn't sound very enthused when he speaks.

"You're back."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	37. Call and Response

Call and Response

"You're back."

"Don't look _too_ excited about it," Bonnie says.

The corner of Clay's mouth hitches upward in a smile. "Don't worry."

"I need your help. These are my friends Tyler and Jeremy. Guys, this is Clay."

"A hybrid and a hunter," Clay says nodding his head slowly. He puts his weight against the door. "It's a pleasure."

Tyler and Jeremy echo the sentiment, and Bonnie smiles at Clay even though he can't see her. "Can we come in?" she asks.

"_You_ can," Clay says. "The hybrid will have to stay outside. The hunter, too, just to keep him company." With that he turns and retreats into the house.

Bonnie looks back to Tyler and Jeremy who might be slightly offended at not being allowed in. "I'll be back."

"What do you think he's gonna tell you?" Tyler asks as she's about to go inside.

"Something that will help," Bonnie says. "I don't know what exactly, but _something_. Just wait here. I'll figure it out."

She's more hopeful now that Clay's involved. He's helped her before, in a way, and despite his lackluster welcoming, he must like her a little bit. This is their best shot.

Jeremy shrugs and sits on the front step to wait. Tyler follows suit, and Bonnie steps into the house. It looks no different from her last visit. Obviously Clay's not big on change. She finds him in the dining room where table hasn't been tidied since her last visit. It's still strewn with pages of paper with grimoires stacked on its edges.

Clay sits in the same spot he did last time, his hands on top of the table. He's taken off his glasses, but they rest within reach. His eyes follow her as she takes the only empty chair in the room. The others are similarly covered in magical junk, books and papers and drawings. Clay's a real pack rat. She wonders how he keeps it all straight.

"You were right about Silas," she says.

Clay's earlier smile returns, with an added hint of smugness. "I did tell you not to raise him," he says.

"I could have gotten the cure without waking him up," she says, in her own defense, "I got caught off guard by some other witches that's all." If Aja hadn't shown up, Bonnie could have left that tomb with the cure in hand, Silas still stony and sleeping. Then her and Clay wouldn't be having this conversation.

"Anyway," Bonnie says, "Silas is dead now. For good."

Clay hums, contemplating. "So you had to use the cure to do it. What a shame. You had your heart so set on it."

"Yeah," Bonnie agrees. "I still do. That's why I'm here."

"You mean you're not here to check in on me?" Clay says. "That's disappointing. In any case, you'll need to be more specific. Why exactly are you here?"

"Do you know another way to cure vampirism?"

Clay chuckles to himself and shakes his head from side to side. "No."

"That last time I was here I told you I needed the cure," Bonnie says, "and your response was 'I know you believe that.' Then I saw it in a dream so I'm here because I think you can help me. Is there _anything_ you can tell me?"

"I don't know of any other way to cure a vampire besides the cure you used on Silas," he says, holding up his hands. "There's no other way."

"There has to be," she says. It was in her stupid trance so it must mean something. That's the thing about witch dreams. She had a dream, and she's a witch. So it _has_ to mean something, and that something has to be able to help them. "In my dream my friend Jeremy, the hunter, told me that we already have the cure. And that was when we _didn't_ have the cure. So I'm wondering if he meant something else?"

"I'm not a dream interpreter, you know," Clay says.

Bonnie purses her lips and looks at him in annoyance. "That makes two of us. That's why I don't understand. I need help, and you're the best chance I've got."

"There is no other way than the cure," Clay says again. "But," he says, as she's sighing and running her fingers through her hair in frustration, "there is way to recreate the cure."

Bonnie straightens in her seat. "You couldn't just lead with that?" she asks, making Clay smile. "How do you do it?"

"I don't know."

And just when it looked like they were getting somewhere.

"Were you this annoying the last time I was here?" Bonnie questions, squinting her eyes at him.

"I think you were the annoying one," he states. "I don't know how to recreate the cure, Bonnie. Witches have tried. _I've_ tried, to no avail."

"You want me to just _make_ a cure?" Bonnie says. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

Clay shrugs. "The best way to begin would be to consult the original creator."

"Qetsiyah. And you never tried to do that yourself?"

"I did," Clay says. "I tried several summonings. She's very selective about who she'll speak to or perhaps the call wasn't loud enough. The usual methods weren't possible. I had no personal items belonging to her, no connection to her at all. I was just a man crying out to her. I might as well have been talking to myself for all the good it did me. Maybe you'll have more luck."

Maybe so. Qetsiyah's pendant is back at Bonnie's house, tucked safely into her jewelry box. And Bonnie is her distant descendent. That's gotta count for something.

"And she'll tell me how to do it?" Bonnie asks.

"I can't tell you that for sure," Clay says, "but you can ask her to tell you."

"But if she does, that's it? It's that easy?"

"Easy for you," Clay says. "Not so much for the rest of us. In my experience I've found the easiest path is the one most overlooked. People always like to complicate things don't they? I can tell you do."

"I don't complicate things," Bonnie says. "They're already like that. This whole thing has been complicated. If you just told me from the start that I could get the cure by asking Qetsiyah I never would have had to go to that island in the first place."

"I suppose that's true," Clay says. "I would have told you if I thought it would work."

"You don't think it'll work?"

"I think it's a long shot," he amends. "Spirits are very particular, just like humans. And she's an old one, and in life she was a powerful witch. She won't need to come just because you call. Qetsiyah cannot be summoned, as other spirits can. She can be _requested_. There's a difference."

Ask Qetsiyah for her help," Clay advises. "Beg if you need to. She was a prideful woman, from what I've learned, but if she helps you, then all your problems are solved."

All of them. Klaus will be dead, Tyler will be fine, and she'll head to graduation and cross that stage with a diploma in hand then head to California with Tyler. And it'll be just fine.

"Come on," Clay says, rising to his feet. "I'll walk you out."

As he's ushering her through the door, he reaches out to touch her arm. "Good luck, Bonnie."

Bonnie steps out onto the porch where Tyler and Jeremy are waiting. "Thank you, Clay," she says.

"You're welcome," he says with a kind smile. "Let me know how it goes."

"Really?" Bonnie says. "Does that mean you want me to stop by again?" She _knew_ he liked her.

Clay laughs and moves to close the door. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, Bonnie." When the door clicks shut, Bonnie smiles before turning around to grab Tyler's and Jeremy's hands and pull them to her car.

* * *

Jeremy follows Bonnie up to her room when they get back, watching as she puts out her candles, arranging them in a circle. They dropped Tyler off at school so he could get his car, but he didn't want to come back with them to Bonnie's. Instead he opted to head to the tomb to check on Klaus, as if he suspected that someone had come and broken Klaus out while they were in North Carolina.

"I hope so," Bonnie says. "Or we're going to have to humor Tyler's idea."

"Well fuck that."

It's nice that they're on the same page.

"Do you need any help?" Jeremy asks.

"I can probably do it on my own," she says, "but you can stay if you want."

Jeremy sits down within the ring of candles with her, and she takes his hands in hers. Qetsiyah's pendant sits between them. She closes her eyes, tries to clear her mind and think only of Qetsiyah. She focuses on her breathing, on the warmth of Jeremy's hands.

"Qetsiyah," she says. "I summon thee."

* * *

Tyler shoves aside the rock in front of the tomb. Klaus isn't at the front anymore, but Tyler can hear him further back. It's not Klaus' style to hang out near the front, as if he's waiting for someone to come release him. He's the type to hang out near the back as if this is just some kind of vacation, because his release is imminent. His rage may have abated some since they've put him in here, or maybe the lack of blood is getting to him. Conserving whatever energy he has left would be better.

Tyler sits outside the tomb, just beyond where the spell comes into effect. He waits.

Klaus comes after several minutes, walking leisurely, but it's a mask. He's thirsty, and it's having an effect on him. A few more days of this and he'll barely be able to drag himself to the entrance. Tyler revels in the thought.

"Tyler," Klaus says. He stands near the entryway, refusing to sit. Tyler looks up at him, waiting for Klaus to decide he's too weak, waiting for him to realize that pretending not to be is stupid because Tyler knows the truth. Klaus reaches out to grasp the side of the wall, and he lowers himself to the ground, resting his back against the wall.

It's the same space where Damon was when they killed him. He was in worse condition than Klaus with the werewolf venom in his system, but still Tyler sees the similarity. He would give anything to have Klaus die in this tomb as Damon did. A few alterations are necessary. Like Tyler will request the honors of ripping Klaus limb from limb, and Klaus will definitely see it coming.

But that might not happen, not unless Qetsiyah decides to break her silence for Bonnie. It seems like there's a pretty good chance of it. Bonnie's a Bennett, Qetsiyah's descendent. She has Qetsiyah's necklace. Why wouldn't she come?

Because she doesn't want to, because she has no reason to tell them how to recreate the cure. They're at her mercy, and Qetsiyah isn't known for being merciful.

The exact opposite really.

"Did you want something?" Klaus asks.

"Just to say hello. _Hello_."

"Why don't you come in here and say hello?" Klaus asks. "Hmm?" He smirks, and Tyler wants to beat that look right off his face, tear Klaus' face right off, find a volcano or a vat of acid to toss him in.

"I might kill you if I go in there," Tyler says. If he rips Klaus' heart out, that will kill him, right? If he can take Klaus' head off, that will do the same, won't it? "And then I'll just end up killing myself and Caroline and Elena and lots of other people. That's more your style, not mine."

"Don't be silly, Tyler," Klaus says. "If you were to step inside, I would kill you. Even at my weakest, I'm still stronger than you."

"We'll see," Tyler says. After a few more days, they'll see what kind of state Klaus is in, what kind of strength he still has. All he wants to see is Klaus dragging his body across the tomb floor, to see him wasting away, and then he wants to take his heart out so Klaus can look at it briefly before he dies.

"What's the plan, Tyler?" Klaus asks. "Am I to spend the rest of my life inside this tomb?"

That very well can be the plan. Klaus can stay in that tomb forever.

But forever is such a long time, and anything can happen in forever. Did anyone think the vampires who first populated this tomb would be released? No, because they thought it would be _forever_.

Forever isn't the same for them. They live forever. Even without blood, Klaus will live on in this tomb until someone else comes along with a witch and fresh blood for him to guzzle down. Klaus has unlimited time, but they don't. Tyler does, sure, but Bonnie and Jeremy are mortal. They'll die eventually. Klaus will still outlive them, and Klaus doesn't deserve to outlive anyone.

Then what's to stop Klaus from coming for Tyler again?

Leaving him alive in any condition is too risky. And too kind.

Tyler knows his plan is the same. Sure Bonnie and Jeremy can throw his Klaus occupied body into a very deep body of water, but the stake they use to put him out may come loose. Then Klaus will still get his immortal life, not in his body, but in Tyler's. Or maybe Tyler can ask Bonnie to dessicate him, too. How much blood can Klaus find to drink in the bottom of the ocean anyway?

"No," Tyler says. "We have other plans for you." _Even if they're not definite yet_. "I have a question for you."

Klaus stays silent.

"Do you regret any of the things you've done?" Tyler asks. He's been alive for hundreds of years. He must regret _something_.

"If I did, why would I tell you?" Klaus asks.

"Maybe it'll save your life," Tyler suggests.

Klaus laughs for a long time at that. When he stops he turns his head to Tyler and looks him directly in the eye, his stare hard and unyielding. "The only thing I regret is not making sure you died that night with the rest of your pack."

* * *

Elena and Caroline are doing homework in the kitchen when Jeremy gets back. Most of the house is in a state of "almost repaired". They boarded up the windows and the back door and tossed the smashed coffee table. Overall it looks pretty decent with most of the mess having been cleaned up.

"Hey," Elena says, looking up from her books. "Where've you been? You bailed right after school."

"I went to North Carolina with Bonnie and Tyler," Jeremy explains joining them at the table. He explains about Clay and the possibility of recreating the cure, Tyler's plan if they fail.

"We can't let him do that," Caroline says.

"We're not," Jeremy assures her. "Bonnie's working on it."

"You mean Qetsiyah didn't show?" Elena asks.

"Nope. We sat there for over an hour trying to summon her, and she just didn't come," Jeremy says. "Bonnie's still trying."

Hopefully she'll work it out somehow. Or hopefully Qetsiyah will just take pity on them, and send them another cure from wherever she is right now. Is that possible? Can she just manufacture a cure from wherever it is she's hanging out and send it their way?

Probably not, but it's a nice thought.

"Where's Tyler now?"

"The tomb with Klaus," Jeremy answers.

Caroline gets up and says her goodbyes, and Elena and Jeremy both know where she's going. Whatever Tyler's doing, Jeremy doubts Caroline will be able to convince him _not_ to do it, but maybe it will be better for Tyler to be there with someone else, someone who hasn't already pointed out the sheer idiocy of his plans.

"Do you think this Qetsiyah thing will work?" Elena asks.

"I hope so."

"What if it doesn't?"

"I don't know," Jeremy answers. "Bonnie kind of promised Tyler we'd do it his way if we can't find anything else, but...I don't think that's gonna happen. Even if we fail, me and Bonnie aren't letting Tyler go anywhere."

Elena taps her pen on the pages of her textbook. "What happens after? If you do kill Klaus? Then what? What about Rebekah?"

"One problem at a time," Jeremy says, mainly because he has no idea what they're going to do about Rebekah. She's not too broken up about Klaus being missing, but what if she gets hit by a bout of sisterly affection once Klaus is dead?

"Right," Elena says. "Well I sent off my graduation announcement to Lynn and Steve."

Yeah, Jeremy saw her sticking it in the mailbox this morning. Just the one. They've got no one else.

"I don't know if they'll be able to come," Elena continues, "but I gave them a ticket just in case they want to. At the very least they may send us some cash. Which we definitely need. I have to find a job, too. So do you, by the way."

"I'm on it," Jeremy says, even though he's not. But he will be eventually.

"But we're definitely on for this summer," Elena says, "Lynn said we can stay with them for as long as we'd like."

"Cool."

"If you still want to go," she says warily.

"I do," he says. "We're gonna go. Okay? We're going."

Elena smiles, and Jeremy thinks he can see something like relief there. And there's some excitement, too. Maybe it's everything that happened the other night, but it feels normal here now, or as close to normal as they've been in a really long time.

* * *

Tyler hears footsteps approaching not long before Caroline appears, coming toward him and raising her hand in an awkward wave. "Hey," she says.

"Ah, Caroline," Klaus says. "It is a pleasure to see you, as always."

"Shut up," Caroline says as she sits down at Tyler's side on the ground. She looks pointedly away from Klaus, focusing her gaze on Tyler. "What are you doing?"

"He appears to be sulking," Klaus supplies. "And simultaneously relishing in my suffering."

"That sounds about right," Tyler says.

Caroline sighs and stands again to push the rock back over the tomb. She ignores Klaus amused protests, and Tyler watches as Klaus disappears behind the rock. If only he was disappearing from the world altogether. With that done, Caroline sits back down, pressing her back against the stone and stretching her legs out in front of her.

"Jeremy told me what you guys are doing," she says. "He told me what you want to do."

"I've already heard all the lectures about it," Tyler tells her. "I don't need to hear anymore."

"Okay," Caroline says. "So, why are you here? Because Klaus is really _bad_ company. I mean I'd rather plan prom all over again and do it Maddie's way than sit here with Klaus. And I know there's a lot you'd rather be doing than sitting here with Klaus so...? What are you doing?"

Tyler sighs. He doesn't really know. He just didn't want to go home, but he didn't want to go to Bonnie's to watch her try and make contact with Qetsiyah. Him being there would probably just mess her up anyway. Too much pressure thinking about how if Qetsiyah doesn't come through that Tyler will insist on them going through with his plan. He didn't want to mess Bonnie up.

"I'm waiting for Bonnie to call," he answers, "and tell me she's done it, remade the cure. Then her and Jeremy can meet me here, and we can shove it down Klaus' throat, and I can kill him. Then I can go to school tomorrow, and I can call my mom and tell her to come home. I can graduate with all of you and leave for California with Bonnie and there won't be anything holding me back."

He draws circles in the dirt.

"But Bonnie hasn't called," he says, "so summoning Qetsiyah must not be going that well."

"Bonnie will come through," Caroline says softly. "She always does. Even if this doesn't work out, she'll find a way."

She'll certainly try.

"Do you mind if I sit here with you?" she asks.

"No," Tyler says. "It's fine."

* * *

Bonnie places the candles in a circle again and lights them all by hand this time. She's so sick of looking at them. Lucy and Abby both popped in to see what she was doing. Lucy even tried to help for a while but like before, nothing came of it. Bonnie sent Lucy to bed when she started yawning, determined to stay awake herself, until Qetsiyah's spectral ass joins her in her bedroom.

It's going to be a long night.

Bonnie thinks she should be over ghosts after the headache the hundreds from the other night caused, but she just needs this one last specter. Just Qetsiyah then Bonnie will swear off ghosts for the rest of her life.

What's she doing wherever she is anyway? What's there to do when you're dead? Hang around? Watch the world change? Maybe it's different for people who have been dead for a long time? Maybe Qetsiyah's somewhere else, doing something else, and she can't step away to answer Bonnie's call? Or maybe she just doesn't want to come.

The ghosts who came when the veil was done all had a choice in the matter, and Qetsiyah was nowhere to be seen then. If she really wanted to journey back to the land of the living, that would have been the perfect time. Silas was there, if Qetsiyah wanted to deal out some more vengeance. But she didn't come. She's still not coming.

Bonnie grips Qetsiyah's pendant, squeezing her eyes shut as if the strength with which she holds it would help.

"I summon thee. I summon thee. I summon thee." She cracks open an eye and sees nothing but her bedroom, empty of any ghostly spirits but particularly empty of the one Bonnie needs to see. "I summon thee. I summon thee. I summon thee. _Please._ I summon thee. I summon thee. I summon thee."

The words stop sounding like words. They're just noises she's making.

"I summon thee."

She tries a new strategy. She puts the pendant around her neck and folds it in her hands. "Qetsiyah," she says, "you're my last shot. If you don't help me, I'm screwed. I _really_ need your help."

Nothing.

Of all her ancestors, Qetsiyah certainly isn't the most accommodating. Emily's much better in that department.

_Beg if you have to_.

Bonnie is not a beggar, but she'll make an exception and stroke the ego of her long dead ancestor if it means getting the cure.

"I don't really know if you can hear me," Bonnie says. "I don't know if that's how this works, but You're the only one who can do this," Bonnie says. "You're more skilled than I am, probably more skilled than I'll ever be. I need your help - I'm _begging _for it."

More nothing, not even the slightest flicker of the candles.

"Do keep in mind," Bonnie adds, "that I killed Silas and you definitely wanted him dead so I think you owe me for that." Then more seriously, "And we're family. Distant, _distant_ family but still family."

The candles flicker as something cold grips Bonnie's chest. It opens her up and enters her chest, a freezing wind that chills her to the core. Darkness swallows her up, and when she opens her eyes she's not Bonnie anymore. She lies on her back in the dimly lit confines of the room, her head barely brushing against one of the candles behind her. Slowly, she sits up.

There's some slight nausea, a bit of a throbbing in her head though she's unsure if that's because she fell backward or if it's a side effect of the jump. She can barely remember what these ordeals felt like, but she recalls that it usually took time for her to get used to borrowed bodies, even when she was alive. Bonnie's is easier to slip into, perhaps because of their distant relation. Blood may become diluted over time, but magic never does.

Bonnie's been calling for hours now. She's very persistent, that much is clear. Qetsiyah can feel it. That and a very healthy ego, despite her earlier words.

And they say Qetsiyah has too much pride

She fingers the pendant lying around her neck, trails the smooth line of the bone. It was more beautiful all those years ago, but she supposes it doesn't look bad for its age. It's certainly been well taken care of. At least it didn't get lost to time. At least it found its way to someone worthy of it.

Qetsiyah closes Bonnie's hand into a fist and watches the candles blow out, dousing her in darkness. Still, she navigates the room with ease as she rises to her feet - Bonnie's feet - and goes down the stairs to start on a cure.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	38. The Cure

The Cure

Jeremy arrives at Bonnie's at the same time as Tyler. It's a bright morning, sunny, just cool enough to be comfortable. It would be nice if they didn't have to head to school this morning. They could sit in someone's backyard, probably Bonnie's, or maybe Tyler's and not do anything. He can't wait until he doesn't have to do _anything_. Even if it's just for one day, Jeremy would love not doing a single thing.

As soon as he woke up he had something to do. Going to school of course. But then that was compounded with coming to Bonnie's after Lucy called them saying that they had to get their asses to Bonnie's place immediately. Jeremy still doesn't know what the fuss is about as they step into the house and are quickly met by Abby.

"Finally," she says. She's wearing a familiar annoyed look, one Jeremy's seen on Bonnie's face many times. She's still in her pajamas, a pair of pale blue pants and a robe. "Come on." She leads them toward the kitchen where Lucy and Bonnie are waiting. Well, Lucy's waiting. Bonnie is hard at work on _something_ still wearing her clothes from yesterday. Did she stay up all night?

"What's wrong?" Tyler asks.

Lucy gestures to Bonnie who is sifting through the cabinets, not even acknowledging Tyler's and Jeremy's presence. "It's Bonnie."

"She looks fine to me," Tyler says.

She does look fine, even if she has been up all night. Jeremy's just waiting for her to actually _say_ something to them, but she's focused on whatever task she's taken on this morning, whatever that may be.

"Yeah," Lucy says, "we thought so, too. Then we realized that this isn't Bonnie."

"It's not?"

"It's Bonnie's body," Abby says, sounding tired compared to Lucy's electrified annoyance. "But Bonnie's not the one in control of it right now."

"Qetsiyah is," Lucy says. "Bonnie's little summoning worked just not the way any of us thought." She glares at Bonnie - at Qetsiyah - but she doesn't appear to notice. If she does, she simply doesn't care.

Bonnie reaches for the herbs, breaking them apart with her hands to drop into the bowl. She doesn't say anything to the contrary but meets Jeremy's eyes briefly. She looks away from him so quickly Jeremy's sure she's not Bonnie. There's always a bit of something when Bonnie looks at him, a hint of amusement, a shared joke that doesn't really have words but they both think is funny, a secret they have between them. It doesn't reach her eyes this time. When she steps away from the counter, going to the table to rifle through a paper bag, she even walks differently. She almost glides, keeping all of her steps slow and contained. Bonnie's usually a bit faster, more rushed.

"So the summoning worked, but why is Qetsiyah in Bonnie's body?" Jeremy asks slowly. He cuts his gaze to Tyler who's wide eyed and staring. Like with Lucy, Qetsiyah doesn't acknowledge his scrutiny.

"That's the question I've been asking," Lucy says, cocking her head to the side and fixing Qetsiyah with a pointed stare.

Finally, she speaks. "It was necessary," Qetsiyah says. She speaks with Bonnie's voice, but something is off, the cadence perhaps. "She asked for my help, and I came to give it."

Tyler turns and goes to lean against the kitchen table, giving his head a slight shake before he opts to sit down instead. Already this morning is long. It's impressive considering Jeremy only woke up forty minutes ago.

"But why couldn't you give your help in your own body?" Lucy continues.

"Because I'm dead," Qetsiyah answers. "I don't have a body."

"You know what I mean," Lucy says. "Why do you have to be in Bonnie's body? You could be ghostly, I know you can."

"I don't like being transparent," Qetsiyah says. "I'm more comfortable this way, and it will go faster. I can make the cure, and then I can leave. I don't care to be constantly called back here to clarify what I already know quite well. I don't have time to teach."

"You're dead," Lucy reminds her. "You're not exactly short on time."

Qetsiyah shoots her a withering look, and Lucy returns it.

This is one hell of a family fued.

Abby only sighs. "How long will this take?" she asks.

"It will take less time if you stop bothering me."

Lucy makes an annoyed sound in the back of her throat. "Fine."

"Bonnie is fine," Qetsiyah assures them. She doesn't look at any of them while she works. Her attention is fully on the herbs she sprinkles. A spicy scent wafts up to Jeremy's nose. It smells familiar, but he can't place it, and Qetsiyah offers no explanation. She withdraws small vials from the bag, filled with various colored liquids. "She is perfectly content, and she supports my being here."

"She doesn't really have a choice does she?" Lucy snaps.

"No," Qetsiyah admits, "but this is what she asked for. My knowledge in creating a cure for her. I am giving her what she asked for. She thanks me. You should as well."

Yeah, they should all make sure to bestow the appropriate amount of gratitude or they _will_ end up in a tomb in Canada.

"Thank you," Jeremy says. "How long will it take?"

"Most of the day," Qetsiyah answers, glancing in his direction. For a moment, she stares, as if she's considering whether or not to say something else. Finally, she steps away from the herbs to reach for Jeremy's arm. Her touch isn't as gentle as Bonnie's would be, her nails dig into the skin almost painfully as she examines his tattoo.

"It's beautiful," she remarks, tracing one of Bonnie's fingers along the dark lines. "Powerful magic blessed you. My family's magic. You're very lucky."

"Yep," Jeremy agrees. He glances to Tyler who shakes his head again but doesn't say anything.

Qetsiyah releases him and returns to her bowl and her mysterious herbs and vials. Abby glances over them curiously which draws Qetsiyah's attention.

"You are not a witch any longer," she says.

Abby draws away from the table, moving back to Lucy's side. "No, I'm not."

Qetsiyah looks her over and makes a quiet humming sound. She says nothing more about it though Lucy and Abby both look at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue. When it becomes clear Qetsiyah has no other opinion on it, Abby turns for the refrigerator and withdraws a bloodbag. She takes it upstairs to drink.

"What exactly are you doing?" Lucy asks.

"Making the cure."

Lucy looks like she's thisclose to slapping Qetsiyah across the face, only held back by Qetsiyah currently taking up residence in Bonnie's body, and Bonnie's face being the one to take the slap. She folds her lips and blows out a puff of air. "I mean, what are you doing to make it?"

"It's very complex," Qetsiyah says, "but I'm sure you'd be able to do it. This part at least. Anyone can gather ingredients."

Lucy looks at Jeremy. "Was that an insult?"

Jeremy honestly doesn't know.

"The ingredients are not all this cure requires," Qetsiyah says, unconcerned. Or maybe she isn't really listening to them. "It asks for intricate magic, spells written by own hand, magical words that have since been lost to time. I kept them very close to me and shared them with no one. I am quite surprised that no one has ever succeeded in making their own cure. It's been so long you'd think someone would have managed."

"You'd think that," Lucy says bitterly.

"How long have you been working on this?" Tyler asks.

"Since last night," Lucy answers before Qetsiyah can, though Jeremy's not sure Qetsiyah was going to bother to respond anyway. She's digging through the paper bag, examining different vials until she finds the one she wants, one filled with amber liquid. "When we woke up this morning we came down and she was doing this."

"Are we sure Bonnie's body is okay?" Tyler asks. "She needs to sleep and eat. You should-"

"I am caring for Bonnie's body magically," Qetsiyah says firmly. "When I leave her she'll be in the same condition as I left her. Right now is a very crucial time in the making of my cure. I didn't entertain human comforts when I made the first cure, and I cannot do it now. Potion making requires an excellent understanding of time. One must be sure to work within a certain frame, to add ingredients at a particular moment, when they are in a specific form, when they will serve their purpose best."

She grabs a pot from the counter to rest it on the stove. She pours something from one of the vials into it and turns it up very high. It's not long before the kitchen is filed with the scent. It's strong and makes Jeremy's nose burn and his eyes water. He takes a few steps back, but that doesn't help very much.

"Bonnie was very clear about needing this," Qetsiyah adds. "I intend to give it to her." She looks back to Tyler and Jeremy, her stare cold. They're Bonnie's eyes, but Qetsiyah stares back. "You are her lovers," she says. "You know her well. Is this cure vital or not? Would Bonnie rather I finish my task or concern myself with trivial comforts?"

Lucy almost laughs.

Jeremy and Tyler do not. Tyler lets out a breath as he rises to his feet. "We should really get to school," he says.

"Yeah," Jeremy agrees. "Um, good luck."

Qetsiyah says nothing.

Lucy is looking at them, a smile tugging at her laps. "Just be glad it was me and not Abby who heard her say that. Go to school, boys. Compel away Bonnie's absence. I'll watch our _guest_."

* * *

"I'm sorry," Caroline says, "I thought you said that Bonnie's body has been taken over by her ancient ancestor, but that can't be right because that sounds _ridiculous_." Her voice is just low enough that anyone passing by won't hear, and no one's paying them much attention anyway. They're in the middle of the transition period where everyone's taken to the halls to head to their next class, and they're holding court by Tyler's locker while he searches for his history study guide.

"Our whole lives are ridiculous, Caroline," Tyler says.

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, but not my-ancient-witch-ancestor-has-taken-over-my-body-s o-I-can't-come-to-school ridiculous."

"She'll still pass her classes," Tyler says.

He's already compelled Bonnie's teachers to excuse her absence today and give her full marks on whatever happened to be due. He knows Bonnie's doing pretty well in most of her classes, but at this point he's not sure if that's because she's actually doing well or because of the compulsion. They thought they were done with that, but they're back at it again. The teachers accept Tyler's _suggestions_ easily though.

"There was that one time with Emily," Elena reminds Caroline, looking out over the slowly emptying hallway. They'll all have to get a move on soon or end up being tardy. "She took over Bonnie's body, too."

Caroline blinks. "Oh, I forgot about that one." Her earlier thesis shot, she alters her direction. "Okay, so whatever. Qetsiyah will be out of there soon, right?"

"She says the cure will take most of the day," Jeremy says, "but she says she'll leave Bonnie's body once it's done. Apparently Bonnie's given her permission to stay in there as long as it takes to make the cure."

"Which won't be that long," Tyler adds. "It'll be done tonight."

"You hope," Matt says, his tone colored with just a bit of the skepticism none of them are willing to voice right now.

"Right," Tyler says, slamming his locker shut. "We hope."

* * *

At lunch they all sit together. Tyler's not sure how that happens, maybe because they're all waiting for some kind of update on Bonnie and Qetsiyah's renting of her body. Maybe Elena wouldn't have sat with them, if Caroline hadn't dropped her tray down across from Tyler's and Jeremy and Matt hadn't followed suit. But they do so Elena does. It must be better than sitting alone, and she and Jeremy are on better terms anyway after all the excitement of a few nights ago.

And if Jeremy doesn't mind Elena being there, Tyler's not about to mind either.

"I haven't heard anything," Jeremy says, looking at Tyler like he expects his experience to have been different.

Somewhere buried in his subconscious, Tyler must think so, too because he checks his phone and feels the familiar pangs of disappointment when he has no messages. The pangs go all around when he confirms the lack of news.

"But it's happening," Elena says, from her end of the table. "I mean, it's actually happening. Qetsiyah will make it then Klaus can be cured. We should be happier than this."

They should be, this is true, but Tyler feels like they're in limbo. Nothing's certain until it is. Yeah, Qetsiyah's _working_ on the cure. Sure, Qetsiyah's _going_ to be done with the cure. But until she's not working on it, until _is_ done, they are stalled. And all Tyler's happy feelings are locked up inside, like runners before a race, just waiting for the signal to run.

And even once the cure is done, those happy feelings will still be there. They won't be released, they won't run, until Tyler's holding Klaus' heart in his hand.

* * *

Right after school they're back at Bonnie's, watching Qetsiyah traverse the kitchen in Bonnie's body. Lucy and Abby scrutinize her every movement, her every breath. Tyler and Jeremy join in on the watching. Qetsiyah lets them and isn't all at annoyed by it. If Bonnie was here, she'd be _very_ annoyed by it. If they were just watching with some interest, she wouldn't mind. But it's the content of the stares that would piss her off: the thinly veiled skepticism, blatant annoyance from Lucy, concern on Abby's end. Qetsiyah, on the other hand, lets Abby's and Lucy's hard looks roll right off of her, treating them more like they're invisible than anything else.

Qetsiyah yanks open one of the drawers with a rattle and withdraws a thin knife. She holds her hand - Bonnie's hand - over the pot on the stove and presses the blade to the skin.

"Hey," Lucy says, pushing herself off the counter where she's been leaning, "what are you doing?"

"_Making the cure_," Qetsiyah says, cutting her eyes to Lucy's. "Bonnie's blood is required, as mine was."

When Lucy relaxes, Qetsiyah's mouth turns into a satisfied smirk, and she presses the knife into Bonnie's palm. If it hurts her, she doesn't show it.

Tyler zeroes in on the blood, watches it fall in fat, red drops into the pot. Balling her hand into a fist, Qetsiyah speaks over the steaming liquid, her voice in a low murmur. She speaks so quickly Tyler can't make out her words, and even if he could, he doesn't think she's speaking English. From where he stands the pot's contents don't look very different from water, and it's gotten much deeper than it was this morning when he first saw it. Its contents are transparent. Not even the blood seems to have a lasting effect. The red swirls travel the pot, chasing after one another until they disappear completely. Qetsiyah continues to speak until long after this, for several minutes, her eyes closed as she rocks backward and forward on her heels.

She goes on for so long Tyler's surprised when it stops. One minute there's a constant humming of spells being cast then nothing, like a switch being flicked. She turns off the stove with a flick of her wrist and takes a spoon from the drawer.

"Is it done?" Tyler asks, as she dips the spoon into the pot, stirring it slowly.

Qetsiyah takes a vial from the paper bag still sitting on the table and removes the cap. She takes a syringe type tool from another of the drawers and dips it into the pot, sucking up the liquid. With steady fingers she deposits it into the vial and presses the cap back onto it.

Tyler expects her to pass it to one of them, him or Jeremy perhaps, being Bonnie's _lovers _and all, but she ignores them and goes to Abby. She extends the vial to her held in Bonnie's slim fingers. "If you should choose to be a witch again," she says.

Abby's eyes are wide and her lips slightly parted, as if she's looking for something to say, when she takes it. "Thank you," she says, but Qetsiyah says nothing.

She returns to the pot and repeats the process with a second vial.

This one she'll definitely give to Tyler or Jeremy.

But no.

Instead, Qetsiyah walks upstairs, cure clutched tightly in hand. She goes with her usual indifference to them following, even when they all pause at the bathroom door after she's entered. Facing the mirror, she tilts her head to the side and reaches to tuck Bonnie's hair behind her ear. She touches her more gently than she's handled anything else today. Then she smiles at her reflection, placing the cure on the counter and leaning forward to grip the sides of the sink. "You're welcome, Bonnie," she says.

She doubles over as if she's been struck, still holding onto the sink. She inhales sharply and staggers as if she'll fall.

Jeremy reaches forward to rest a hand on her back then he takes it away it probably because it still could be Qetsiyah, and it's unlikely she wants to be touched. She may just turn him into stone and banish him to a tomb in Canada. But when Bonnie turns to them, Tyler's sure it's her staring back. The light in her eyes as returned, and when she smiles it's Bonnie's smile. When she speaks it's Bonnie's words.

She snatches up the small vial. "Let's go kill Klaus."

* * *

Bonnie senses Klaus at the back of the tomb. She sets her electronic lantern on the ground while she moves the rock and stares down into the dark expanse of the tomb, the warm glow of the lantern not reaching very far into its darkness, barely brushing against its surface.

Klaus isn't moving, or at least he's going to make her wait. Maybe he thinks she's Tyler, come to watch him suffer some more. Maybe he's decided he's not open to that anymore, even if it means sticking sharp pins into Tyler with every reminder of all he's cost him. Or maybe Klaus would rather conserve his dwindling energy.

"Nik!" she calls, in Rebekah's voice. In her accent. She brushes Rebekah's pale blond hair over one shoulder and taps her foot on the ground. Klaus will hear the sound, hear the dull thumping of Rebekah's heeled boots. She was wearing them when Bonnie turned up at the manor, which she's taken over in Klaus' absence. Appearing as her now is the only way he'll accept the blood with little suspicion, though Rebekah did warn Bonnie it may not work with hers and Klaus' currently strained relationship.

Bonnie isn't worried. Klaus is starving, and Rebekah is the friendliest face he'll have seen in a while. Besides, as little as Klaus may trust his baby sister, it's still way more than he trusts Bonnie, Tyler or Jeremy. Bonnie considered appearing as Caroline, but the sudden change in Caroline's demeanor, suddenly wanting to help and heal after her dismissal of him the night before, may make him suspicious. Then he may not drink it. Klaus is starving, certainly, but there's still the chance he's not so starving that he'll accept whatever they give him, particularly if it seems to be beneficial to him.

They all know things done for Klaus' benefit are not things they do.

"I've brought you a treat," Bonnie calls when she doesn't sense him moving. He's going to stay back there and sulk, as if it's a punishment for anyone other than himself. As if Rebekah would care if he chose to sit in the back of a tomb when she came here to offer him blood. It's Klaus missing out here. Or maybe Rebekah _would_ care. The Mikaelsons are weird that way, though Bonnie supposes Rebekah's beginning to grow out of her devotion to Klaus.

Bonnie withdraws the blood bag from her purse and tears it open. The scent of the blood alone should make Klaus curious. She smiles to herself when she senses his movement, and her smile gets wider as he comes into view.

He comes slowly, just a shadow in the dark. His slender frame moves on unsteady feet, but he's walking and he's walking relatively well. There's still some time left before his starvation begins to take a more severe toll. "Rebekah," he grunts. He doesn't look at her, he only has eyes for the blood bag in her hand and the sustenance - and the doom he doesn't know is there - contained within the confines of the plastic.

"How kind of you, dear sister," Klaus says. He reaches for the wall, but thinks better of it. Maybe because he doesn't want Rebekah to see how weak he's becoming. Forcing himself to stand straight up, Bonnie waits a moment, just to see if he'll be able to hold that position. She wishes he would stumble into the wall.

When he remains standing, Bonnie smiles with Rebekah's lips. "What's family for?" She extends the bag toward him, careful to remain beyond the threshold and out of his reach. Rebekah wouldn't trust him if she were here, not to drag her in there to rot with him. Klaus is fine with rotting. He's got an eternity for that. It's the rotting _alone_ that gets to him, and he's proven himself quite willing to condemn his family to years upon years of suffering if he so chooses it.

He grips the end of the bag and pulls it from her hands, putting it to his mouth slowly. He keeps his eyes on her the whole time, like he expects her to do something. She stares back blankly. Klaus stops before the blood bag reaches his lips.

"When am I getting out of here?" he questions.

"I was thinking of letting you stay here for awhile," Bonnie says. "I'd bring you something to eat from time to time, of course."

"Of course," Klaus echoes.

Bonnie lets her gaze travel the threshold, gliding over the tomb's entrance, at the craggy edges, the dirt, the prints she's left there and also others. Tyler's and Caroline's. "It's not exactly a dagger to the heart, but I think it will have the same effect after a few decades being trapped inside of it."

"You wouldn't."

Bonnie cocks her head to the side. "Are you sure?"

Klaus says nothing.

"Drink your blood, brother," she says. "AB positive, fairly fresh. It was drawn yesterday. Enjoy it. It may be the last you see for some time. I'm thinking of leaving town."

"And going where?"

"Away."

Klaus chuckles to himself. "You would leave me here?"

Finally he raises the blood to his mouth and drinks. He savors it. It seems to fill him, making him expand as he closes his eyes and drinks it down. He squeezes the plastic in his fingers, guzzling it like it's water. The bag steadily empties until Klaus is tearing it apart to lick the insides of it. She glimpses his tongue, stained red with blood.

He hasn't left a bit of that cure.

"That was...refreshing," Klaus says, dropping the plastic to the ground.

"You're welcome," Bonnie says, in her own voice. She lets Rebekah's visage melt away. Blond hair gives way to dark curls, she shrinks several inches, Rebekah's heeled boots become Bonnie's flat ones, and Klaus' contented expression transforms into one of malice.

It's nice to be herself again. She hasn't been herself all day, only for an hour or two and then she was wearing Rebekah's face, and it's nice to be Bonnie Bennett again. And it's nice that Klaus is seeing her. And it's nice to know that there's dread blossoming in his gut because she's surely done something terrible to him, or is about to.

How long will it take him to realize just how much trouble he's in? The coughing may give it away, then the vomiting. Those symptoms will be upon him soon.

"Witch," he growls, narrowing his eyes into slits and stepping as close as he can to the tomb's entryway. He steps on the plastic bag when he moves forward but doesn't acknowledge. "What are you doing?"

Bonnie doesn't respond. Instead she turns her head and calls to Tyler and Jeremy. "You can come in now."

The coughing begins before the sentence is fully out.

They've just reached her side when Klaus doubles over, heaving onto the ground. The blood he just drank forces its way back up, and it sounds almost painful, far more than it did when this happened to Silas, like he's coughing up vital organs along with the blood. Klaus falls to the floor, clawing at the dirt with his nails. Bonnie looks away while he continues to vomit. She had to watch with Silas, but she doesn't have to watch this time.

She looks at Jeremy and Tyler instead, one half of their faces bathed in the light of the lantern and the other shadowy and hidden.

When Klaus finally stops, he looks up at them. "_What have you done_?"

"Come on out, Klaus," Tyler says. "That tomb only holds vampires and hybrids. You're neither. Not anymore."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	39. Three For Three

Three For Three

Klaus steps from the tomb tentatively, glaring at them the whole time. He moves as if he doesn't expect the barrier to give, like he expects it to still be there, impeding his progress and keeping him trapped.

It's not.

He steps over it with a stricken look on his face then a flicker of disappointment, another of anguish and then one of rage. The glow of the lantern on the floor reaches his shoes and the bottom of his pants, dirt stained and ragged. Tyler can see Klaus trembling with his fury.

He remembers that, that out-of-control ferocity, the nearly painful desire to just hurt someone or something. The urge to toss out some kind of physical manifestation of his own inner turmoil, to see it written across a wall or someone's face or private property, to prove that it was there and to prove that he got rid of it, threw it out to the world like one scatters ashes on the wind.

It was only after it was gone, after he'd thrown it out there, that he felt some semblance of calm. Then an hour or so later something would ignite that rage again, and the whole process would repeat itself.

The wolf's aggression is unmanageable, tempered only by death and then blood.

Klaus stands in his body as if it doesn't belong to him anymore, as if his limbs, his bones, his blood are all transplants and he doesn't remember when he lost all of the originals. He seems so uncertain Tyler thinks he may be able to take Klaus' head clean off with little to no fight from him while he's navigating the labyrinth that is his new existence.

He won't have to get used to it. Tyler will kill him now and save him the trouble and the crisis and the long nights pondering the meaning of the life and wondering what it means now to be a wolf - a bit higher up on the food chain, evolutionary rung or whatever it is Klaus would like to call it - but nowhere near the level of an Original hybrid.

Not only is Klaus weaker, he is mortal. And he is a mortal bound to the moon - a full moon which is several days off and won't be providing any of the pick-me-ups that Klaus could utilize to wriggle out of this one alive. Now there are countless people more powerful than Klaus. And Tyler is one of them.

"Klaus," he says, stunning the other man out of his introspection. He looks to Tyler and seems to remember where he is, who he's with, and what's inevitably approaching.

Death.

Bonnie and Jeremy are there, somewhere on the periphery. Tyler can hear them, smell them, feel them, but he makes himself forget them. He can only focus on Klaus.

Klaus is Tyler's to kill, and he knows it.

"Well have at it then," he says, spreading his arms. "Take your vengeance. On the man who freed you from your curse." And saddled Tyler with plenty of worse things.

The wolf isn't the worst thing Tyler's faced.

"Can you lock me in here with him?" Tyler asks, looking to Bonnie.

Bonnie blinks away her confusion. "I _can_, but why do-"

"I'm turning," Tyler says. "You can't be here when I'm done."

"We're staying," Jeremy says, "but are you sure you want to do that?"

Klaus' familiar smug smirk appears on his face. Even when he's fallen this far, he still manages to smirk like that, like he's so much better. He doesn't think Tyler will do it.

The transformation will hurt, like always, but the pain won't be as bad as the last time or the time before that or the time before that. He'll survive the pain and when he's back to himself, he'll be staring at Klaus' mangled body.

Bonnie's fingers brush across his hand, and she tugs lightly on his fingers. He steps back toward her, looking at her face and seeing that she's not going to try to convince him not to do it. And she's not going to question him wanting to do it now. "Just let me try something?" she says, pressing her fingers to his forehead. "For clarity," she offers as an explanation. "You should remember it," she says, as she drops her hand back to her side. "This."

"Will it work?" he asks.

Bonnie lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "I hope so. We're gonna stay with you. We'll be safe, in case the spell doesn't take. I'll handle it." She releases him and takes Jeremy's hand instead. She pulls him with her into the tomb, stepping past Klaus with their eyes on him, as if daring him to make even the smallest, barely threatening move toward them. Klaus doesn't.

Tyler's never turned before, never made himself do it because he truly wanted to. Even when he was doing it again and again to break the sire bond, he kept waiting for the day to come when he'd no longer have to, reminding himself that this was necessary even if he wished it wasn't. He's always been unwilling, and he's always thought he'll be that way for life. If anyone asked him if he'd ever turn again of his volition, he'd say no without a hint of hesitation. But he'll turn now, and he'll kill Klaus as the wolf.

Klaus never did him any favors.

Tyler pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it to Jeremy. Same goes with his pants and shoes.

It goes faster than it ever has now that he doesn't resist it. Maybe that's been the trick all along: to want it. To want the wolf despite the pain and his body feeling as though it's betraying him. Maybe all he ever had to do was be happy to have it. Or maybe it's just the rage that masks the pain and makes him think it's something else. Either way, he doesn't mind it. Even as his spine breaks, he only wants to fall into the animal and let it consume him. He grits his teeth against the agony, swallowing down cries of pain. If he keeps his focus on Klaus, makes Klaus his one priority, it's easier that way.

The pain isn't important, the pain is going to give him what he needs. He's grateful for it. More grateful to it than he's ever been to Klaus. The pain means he's himself, he belongs to himself. Klaus is nothing and no one and never gave him or anyone else anything but misery.

It takes him a moment to adjust to the change in level, where his eyes are just a bit higher than Klaus' knees, where he's on four feet instead of two. It's incredibly warm as a wolf, though the wolf is technically dead and is as cold as he is in his regular form, but there's heat - or maybe it's electricity - is there, pulsing through his body and pushing his fur up on end. It sparks through his legs, all four of them. The space seems much bigger and much smaller this way.

Being conscious within the wolf is strange, to say the least. He's never felt powerful as the wolf. He's never felt anything as a wolf. He's just an animal with a mind ruled by instinct, to hunt and to feed and defend oneself. Even with the loss of control, it was never freedom, but now it feels that way. He can think and the energy that coils through his muscles and makes him feel strong, dangerous.

The wolf is good at chaos, always has been, but now he gets to wield it, really wield it. He gets to point it in a direction and watch its perfect aim destroy something deserving of that destruction.

Klaus is wary of him, as he should be. Bending his knees just slightly, he prepares himself for Tyler's attack. Perhaps he thinks something will actually come of it, that he really will be able to fend Tyler off. Even if he does manage it, Klaus still won't leave the tomb alive. Bonnie and Jeremy are still there, and they'll handle him if need be. But Tyler knows that won't be necessary. As a hybrid he might as well have a full moon whenever he turns, and Klaus doesn't even have that.

When Tyler launches himself at him, Klaus tries to catch him, to shove him off, but Tyler latches on and snaps down on Klaus' throat with his teeth. Warm blood spurts into his mouth, and he only bites down harder. He's mostly oblivious to Klaus' scratching hands, trying to find purchase in Tyler's fur. A couple times he gets a good grip, but his attempts to pull Tyler off are futile. He's too strong, and his nails are locked into Klaus' skin. It'll take more than hands to get him off. He hears Klaus screaming underneath him, but he only digs his nails in deeper. More blood soaks his paws, and he feels the warmth of the liquid against his fur.

_Good._

His pack runs through his mind: Bryant. Lana. Steven. Jack. Adrian. Cora. Sabrina. Chase. Kevin. Casey. Hope. Kim.

Where the blood was sweet before, it's taken on a bitter taste, like all twelve of them have taken root there, and their murders are affecting the flavor.

Klaus' body is a shaking mess, he kicks his legs pathetically. There's a gurgling noise coming from his throat. After all this time, this is what Klaus is reduced to. A dying, bleeding, whining _thing_.

It's annoying.

So annoying that Tyler bites down harder on his throat. The snap of Klaus' neck is a surprise, and he lets him go suddenly. Stepping off of Klaus', he looks at him. His clothes, blood-stained and torn, the angry bite mark on his throat, with ropes of blood adorning the ground. Klaus' trembling and gurgling stopped immediately, and the whole tomb is silent.

With the exception of Jeremy's and Bonnie's pounding hearts.

When Tyler swings his head around, they're watching him. They were worried about him, even though Tyler thinks it was pretty clear there was nothing to worry about. They're both crouched on the ground, looking at him, probably looking for some flicker of recognition in Tyler's eyes. He figures there's blood staining his nose and teeth and matting in his fur. Never before has Tyler wondered what he looks like as a wolf, but he imagines it's something horrifying and all the blood probably doesn't help any.

Slowly he steps toward the tomb's entrance. He can't go any further, and his paws scrape ineffectually against the barrier Bonnie's erected there. Tyler sits back on his hindlegs and hopes he looks nonthreatening. He tries to put on his best I'm-me-and-I'm-not-going-to-maul-you face, but he doubts it translates as well in wolf form.

_Tyler?_

Bonnie's voice enters his mind like liquid, flowing through his brain in a careful stream. It's tentative and doubtful, but it's there.

_Bonnie_, he answers.

If wolves could smile, he's be smiling because she extends a hand toward him, and he lifts his nose so her fingertips can brush against it. When he sees the blood come away on her fingers he wants to apologize for being such a mess, but she doesn't mind. In fact, she moves closer to him, to rub the top of his head. He's never been _pet_ before, but he doubts that's something many werewolves have experienced. It's not so bad. If it was someone else, maybe it would annoy him because he feels so much smaller down here, like a pet looking up to its owner, but it's Bonnie so he doesn't mind it so much. Her fingers are cautious and tender as they move to brush against one of his ears.

Tyler lets Jeremy have a turn, too (but just one little stroke of his right ear because Jeremy's likely to make this into a joke later) before he pulls away from them. He retreats to the space alongside what's left of Klaus to begin the transformation.

His body elongates. It's a different pain than the first turning. This one always feels more like pressure on his body, on his organs, and he can't really breathe. The first is full of ripping, tearing sensations, but this one is more uncomfortable than anything else. It helps that it goes faster than the first. Drawing in deep breaths, he rolls onto his back alongside Klaus, flexing his fingers and his toes and licking his human (well, hybrid) lips. He tastes the blood there, and he can feel it on his skin, on his mouth, on his hands, arms, feet and legs.

There's a smell in the air. Of death, the spilled blood, sickeningly sweet and almost painfully strong. Klaus' body doesn't look real from where Tyler is, more like a mannequin, artificial and manmade. But it's very, very real. The body is warm, like his blood was, though it's beginning to cool now that he's dead. Tyler sits up as Bonnie and Jeremy come toward him and accepts his clothes when Jeremy passes them to him.

Tyler pulls them on hastily and looks back to Klaus when he's done. He seems to be staring right at him with those lifeless, blue eyes. However disturbing it may be, it doesn't outweigh the feeling of deep satisfaction that has settled itself in Tyler's gut.

Welcome to Mystic Falls, Klaus Mikaelson is dead.

* * *

Bonnie finds Rebekah in Klaus' old spot. At the fireplace. She's standing, where Klaus was always lounging on the sofa. To complete the Klaus look, she's got a drink in hand that she sips from occasionally. She turns as Bonnie enters, with Klaus' body hovering behind her to float gently to the floor, swaying from side to side like a leaf on the wind. It appears just slightly whimsical, in a grim, morbid kind of way. It's the chunk of flesh missing from Klaus' throat, covered in dried blood, the clothes torn and bloody, that does it. And it's the way Klaus lies completely still. Bonnie's never seen him so still except when they dessicated him, and then it didn't really count. There was still life in there somewhere, churning below the surface.

With a grim look on her face, Rebekah steps toward the body. First comes the wrinkled nose of disgust then the wet glimmer of sadness in her eyes. Just as quickly, she raises her glass to her lips and downs what little liquid remains inside of it.

"I trust you're satisfied," she says, turning away from Bonnie and looking back to the fire. There's no reason for it to be lit. It's not as if Rebekah feels the cold, and it's springtime anyway. Maybe she lit it in a sudden bout of nostalgia.

"I am," Bonnie assures her. "Klaus got what was coming to him."

Rebekah's quiet for a moment before she turns back around, fixing Bonnie with a lofty look. "And your end of the bargain?"

Bonnie turns and steps toward Elijah's coffin, placed in the corner. She wonders how many times Rebekah has stood alongside this coffin and willed it to open only to trudge away after a few minutes of that. She wonders how many times Rebekah's done it in the past few hours alone, when she knew Bonnie, Tyler and Jeremy were killing Klaus.

Bonnie opens the coffin with a few murmured words, and she stares down at Elijah with a dull expression. She likes him so much better this way. Being daggered isn't conducive to talking. "I keep the dagger," Bonnie says, looking at the silver hilt, "and you give me the white oak stake."

Soon this asshole will be up and about again, wandering the world in a superbly fitted suit and waxing bullshit and expecting to be addressed with dignity and respect from all the commoners. Maybe he'll come looking for Bonnie again, in a few years once Rebekah's become complacent and is infatuated with some beautiful, blue-eyed human boy who distracts her from her older brother. If that happens, Bonnie will dagger him again and she'll send his body to the bottom of an ocean. There won't be a deal Rebekah can make to convince Bonnie to do otherwise.

But that's Elijah's call to make. If he leaves her alone, she'll do the same for him. The idea is the threat of the white oak stake or another shiny dagger to the heart will deter him from doing anything stupid.

"I remember the terms," Rebekah says curtly. She stays where she is, possibly worried about startling Bonnie into setting her on fire or something. "I don't need to be reminded."

"I'm just making sure," Bonnie says. "Where are you two going to go?"

"Why?" Rebekah asks. "So you can hunt us down and kill us like you did Nik?"

"Like you agreed to let us do to _Nik_," Bonnie says. "And I told you no one wants to have to hunt you or Elijah." She watches as Rebekah pours herself another drink. "I need to know where you'll be so I can know not to go there."

Rebekah drinks it all in a few gulps then turns to the bottle, tossing the glass into the fire. "Stay away from New Orleans," she says before raising the bottle to her lips.

She'll be leaving Mystic Falls by tomorrow morning with Elijah in tow. She won't be taking finals, or attending graduation or doing anything more than getting the hell out of here. She won't return to Mystic Falls while Bonnie's still alive and is being forced to return to town for occasional holidays and birthdays and the like. It's part their deal.

"Will do," Bonnie says. "If Elijah tries to come after us-"

"He won't," Rebekah says dully, cutting her gaze to Bonnie. "I've already told you. I can keep him from doing that. It won't be like with Kol. I give you my word."

Her word is better than many of her brothers'. Rebekah may be Bonnie's favorite Original which is saying something because she still hates Rebekah, but at least she knows a good deal when she sees one. At least she knows when to take it and run. If she manages to keep Elijah in check, Bonnie may just spare a few fond thoughts of her a couple times a year and hope that no one's stuffed her in anymore small, dark spaces.

"Hope you're right," Bonnie says. She pulls the dagger from Elijah's chest and wipes it off on the lapel of his suit jacket. When she turns around Rebekah's withdrawing the white oak from a box on the mantle. She examines it for a moment, touching the point with the tip of her finger, before she hands it over into Bonnie's waiting hand.

* * *

When Tyler gets off the phone with his mom, he goes instantly to the shower and leaves Bonnie and Jeremy in his room to wait. Celebration is the next order of business, but they can't do anything with Tyler looking an extra from a horror movie. Drinking's out because they've all got to head to school in the morning, and now isn't the time for any of them to have hangovers.

So it's gonna be sex.

It's a wordless agreement that they came to on the way to the Mikaelson place. None of them said anything about it, but it was understood from the kiss Bonnie laid on him back at the tomb. The one she gave Tyler was on the cheek but only because Tyler had a bad case of Klaus mouth, and neither of them were crazy about kissing each other with that particular taste in the mix.

Jeremy would think the transformation would have taken a lot out of him, but it seems to have done the exact opposite. He's in a better mood than he's been in days, because Klaus is finally dead and being buried somewhere by Rebekah.

But it would be highly unhygienic for Tyler to roll around with them in bed covered in Klaus' blood so he heads straight for the shower,

"We're done," Bonnie says, as she places the dagger and white oak stake on top of Tyler's chest of drawers. "We're officially _done_."

Damon? Dead. Stefan? Dead. Klaus? Dead.

Three for three.

He sent Elena a text to tell her the good news. And to tell her he wouldn't be back tonight.

Bonnie's sifting through Tyler's drawers for something. When she finds what she's looking for, she spins around and holds it up the square of foil so he can see.

Grinning, Jeremy steps forward to kiss her., his arms encircling her waist. She leans into him, raising her lips to his.

It's the first time they've kissed, and there hasn't been anything tugging at the back of Jeremy's brain. It's the first time there hasn't been anything else to do but this. They don't need to stop to strategize, to discuss immortal witches or annoying Originals or vampires or ghostly hunters or anything else. They can just make out, and it doesn't mean they're ignoring something else. There's _nothing_ nagging at the back of Jeremy's mind, not even finals which will be easy compared to everything else. He's just kissing Bonnie, and there's nothing else to think about.

Because they're finished.

Their work is done. Finally, finally done.

Bonnie's fingers rake through his hair as he presses lingering kisses to her neck, where Qetsiyah's necklace still hangs. His fingers move down to the top of her jeans, and he undoes the button and drags down the zipper without taking his lips from hers.

When he touches her, she's warm and wet, and his fingers slide easily against her. She sighs in his ear, and he feels her fumbling with his belt buckle. She stops what she's doing to push her jeans down her legs, kicking them off. She grabs his hand, where his fingers are still slick, and pulls him with her to the bed, slightly bigger than hers (so it'll fit the three of them more comfortably).

Her hands on his shoulders, she eases him down onto the edge of the bed, back to working at his belt. When she gets it undone, he pushes his jeans past his knees. "Should we wait for Tyler?" Bonnie asks, pausing as she reaches to pull off her shirt.

"He can catch up," Jeremy says.

A smile spreads across Bonnie's face, and she takes off her shirt. He pulls his off, too. She straddles his waist, his erection sliding bumping against her thigh, only his boxers and her panties left between them. When they get them off and the condom on, Bonnie's pushing him backward and easing herself onto him.

"Already?" he asks, after he's gotten over the searing tightness of her. Usually it takes a while longer for her to be ready for him. It doesn't take much for him, but Bonnie's always liked a little something beforehand. Maybe some oral here or there, just to make sure, but she's faster tonight.

"Yeah," she says. "I don't want you to think I'm a freak or anything, but-" She shudders on top of him and takes a moment to speak again, "but seeing Klaus get all...killed was kind of hot." She's leaning to kiss him and he lifts his lips to hers. A turn of her hips elicits a sharp breath from him, and she laughs softly as she kisses him again.

"I don't think you're a freak," he says. He, the guy who got turned on by the sight of blood on the bottom of a dress on the night this whole "let's all have sex together" thing began.

It's not like Klaus being dead isn't a contributing factor in tonight's festivities anyway. It's a good occasion to have sex on: Klaus' deathday.

"Good," Bonnie says, kissing him again.

"You guys couldn't wait fifteen minutes?" Tyler says, sounding more amused than offended. Jeremy didn't hear him turn the water off, but he hears him as he steps into the room. Neither of them answers him because they're still kissing, but he feels Bonnie's smile. She pulls her lips from his with a smack and turns to look toward Tyler, standing at the bathroom door with a towel around his waist.

"Come on," she says, extending her hand.

Jeremy rests his head back against the bed, closing his eyes as Bonnie leans forward to lay kisses across his neck, her hips moving in time with his. When the bed dips, Jeremy knows Tyler's joined them, and all he has to do is open his eyes to see Tyler on his knees next to them, towel discarded, and Bonnie straightening up to put a hand on the back of his neck and pull him into a kiss.

Jeremy doesn't know when they change positions. Everything kind of melds into a haze, and he doesn't mind it all when Bonnie gets sandwiched between them, Tyler at her front, Jeremy pressed to her back and still sheathed inside of her. She and Tyler are kissing and one of Bonnie's hands is out of Jeremy's view, but it's moving back and forth, probably over Tyler.

Jeremy doesn't last much longer. It's been awhile since he and Bonnie have had sex, but he makes sure Bonnie finishes, using his fingers after he's pulled out. She comes with a few well-placed strokes then Jeremy hears Tyler's shallow breaths and quiet groan when he comes under Bonnie's hand.

Jeremy gets up to throw away the condom, and when he turns back around Tyler is picking up the sheets (somehow they ended up on the floor) and draping them over him and Bonnie. Bonnie holds up the end so Jeremy can climb underneath. She gropes for his hand under the covers. When she finds it, she entwines their fingers and lets out a breathy sigh.

"Now what?" she asks the ceiling.

There's nothing at all to do, except the things all the other kids in town are doing which is a little boring now that Jeremy thinks about it.

"Now we go to sleep," Jeremy answers.

"You should have turned the light off while you were up," Tyler says.

"I got it," Bonnie says right before the room goes dark. They lay there for a few minutes, but none of them goes to sleep. Bonnie fidgets restlessly at his side, and Tyler shifts a little bit as well.

There really isn't anything to do. Maybe they'll just spend all their time having sex now? And occasionally homework?

"Tyler?" Bonnie says.

"Hm?"

"When you're not thrashing around and attacking everything, you're kinda cute as a wolf."

"Thanks."

"You would have been cuter without all the blood," Jeremy says.

Bonnie agrees. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Tyler echoes.

"I guess we should go to sleep now," she says.

So that's what they do.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! The next chapter will be the last and I'm hoping to have it up tomorrow.**


	40. The Hybrid, the Witch, and the Hunter

**This is the end, peeps. It's been fun. There may be a few typos that I'll try to go and correct tomorrow, but I really wanted to get this up today. **

* * *

The Hybrid, The Witch, and The Hunter

Bonnie's is the first name called. Jeremy watches alongside Lucy as she walks the length of the stage in her high heels and red cap and gown, which swirls around her ankles with each step. The ceremony's outside. It's already getting hot, and he hopes they're done before it gets any worse. At least Jeremy can leave after Tyler's gotten his diploma and wait inside the school where it'll be cool and comfortable and he can take his tie off.

Jeremy barely pays attention to anyone else as they accept their diplomas and receive polite applause while they shake the hands of the principal and vice principal and return to their seats. It's a small town so it's a small class, thank god, so they get to Matt within a couple of people after Bonnie. Then there's Caroline who looks like she's working hard to contain herself as she practically snatches her diploma from Principal Keller.

Elena's next, her steps more reserved. Jeremy pulls out the camera to take a few pictures. They've really fallen down on the picture taking in their house, but they're going to work on it in Denver. They'll add some new pictures to the frames.

The longest break is between Elena and Tyler, with almost a dozen other people who have to cross the stage before him. The heat picks up a bit so Jeremy mentally curses whoever decided to have this thing outside. When Tyler crosses the stage, Jeremy glances in Carol Lockwood's direction where she's clapping as enthusiastically as she can without seeming impolite.

The ceremony's boring now that all the people who matter to him have gone. So he stands and retreats into the school as planned. The air conditioner is blasting in there at least, and he sits down on one of the benches outside the administrative offices and loosens his tie to wait for it to end. Closing his eyes, he rests his head against the back of it, only opening his eyes when he hears doors opening and a multitude of footsteps advancing toward the gym, where all the graduates were getting gathered before the ceremony.

Bonnie's leading the pack, still in alphabetical order. She spots him right away and rolls her eyes, breaking away from the line to approach him. "Get too hot for you?"

"Yes."

"You don't see us complaining," Caroline says, as she unzips her gown and drapes it over her arm, "and we're wearing _robes_."

"You're also a vampire, Caroline," Jeremy says. "You don't feel the heat anyway."

"Shut up," Caroline says. "My hair looks like hell under here, I know it." With that she turns and goes into the gym to get her stuff.

Bonnie takes off her cap and gown, smoothing down her hair self-consciously. "Well, high school's officially over," she says, nodding down to the diploma, encased in a dark red leather booklet, she's set on the bench beside him.

"For _you_. I've still got a year."

"It'll go fast," she promises.

"It better." It's probably too late to start hanging out with people in his own class.

Jeremy looks up as people start leaving the gym, making their way back outside to meet with family and friends. Caroline whose hair looks perfectly fine, and Matt follow the rest of the herd, but Elena and Tyler walk in their direction both of them now wearing normal clothes.

"Congratulations," Jeremy says, standing up to hug Elena. She pats him on the back graciously.

"Thanks," she says. "I saw you left."

"I told you I was going to," Jeremy says. "It was really hot out there."

"You're such a baby," Tyler says, before he heads outside to find his mom, and Bonnie goes into the gym to get her things.

"Well," Elena says, when it's just the two of them, "I'm ready to get out of here." Not the school, but town. Their flight to Denver leaves in the morning. Elena found the earliest one she could. Like her, Jeremy's eager to put Mystic Falls behind him for a couple of weeks. Tyler and Bonnie are gonna be busy trying to convince their parents to let them shack up next year, which is beginning to seem like a full time job. Tyler's mom is more willing, but she'll only do it if Bonnie's dad agrees so Bonnie's enlisted Abby and Lucy to help her convince him.

"Here," Jeremy says, pulling an envelope from his jacket.

"You got me a card?" she says, arching an eyebrow as she takes it from him.

"I didn't know what else to get you," he says. He put twenty bucks in there for her, but she'll probably put it away to use for something practical like food or something. He'll have to convince her to do something else, like buy a new outfit or makeup or whatever it is Elena's interested in these days.

"Well, thanks," Elena says. "So, we can go hang out with the others for awhile. Caroline invited us out to dinner with her mom. Matt's coming, too."

Like them, Matt's also there on his own. Wherever his mom is, it wasn't somewhere an invite could reach.

"Unless you want to go with Bonnie," Elena says. "Or Tyler. I don't know. You don't have to come if you don't want to."

Jeremy slips his hands into his pockets. They're beginning to get over this tentative relationship they have, the questions of where exactly they fall on each other's lists of interests, but they're getting better. "I'll go with you."

* * *

Bonnie can't see her dad or Lucy anywhere. Knowing her dad he's probably found some other parent to talk to, and knowing Lucy she's probably found some single dad to talk to. Abby's the only one she sees, lingering in the shade of the building in her prim floral dress and her heels. She turns when she hears Bonnie approaching and hugs her quickly, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"Congratulations," she says. "You look so pretty."

"Thanks," Bonnie says. "So do you. Humanity's working for you."

"It's the magic," Abby says with a shrug. She and Lucy have been doing all kinds of stuff to exercise Abby's magic some more and get it back to where it used to be. Sometimes Bonnie watches, occasionally she participates.

"Where's Dad?" Bonnie questions.

"Talking to Liz," Abby answers.

"Lucy?"

"She bumped into one of the dads," Abby says, with a short laugh.

"That's what I thought," Bonnie says. "So. Are you leaving town? Where are you gonna be?"

She already knows all about Lucy's plans. Well, not _all_ about them because not even Lucy knows exactly what she's doing yet, but she's stayed in Mystic Falls longer than she's ever stayed anywhere else so she's eager to leave, maybe to head up to New England where she's got some friends. Who knows?

Abby hasn't been as forthcoming. "I'll be here," she says. " I'm moving into your Grams' house for awhile at least. It's just sitting there, and I figure why not?"

"Yeah," Bonnie says. "Why not?"

It has just been sitting there. It's been hard to find buyers so the house has remained unoccupied, and it makes sense for Abby to have it now.

Bonnie scans the crowd searching for her dad, but she can't see him so she turns back to Abby.

"Thanks for everything," Bonnie says, somewhat awkwardly. She's been meaning to have this conversation with Abby, but she keeps putting it off. Before she had excuses like Silas and Klaus and Qetsiyah and the cure, but there aren't really any reasons to keep putting it off. "Helping us with all of this. I know I wasn't really _happy_ when you came, but...I'm glad you stayed."

"So am I," Abby says, a wide smile appearing on her face. "I think your dad's coming around about the apartment. Another few days, and he'll probably be giving you the okay."

"Yeah?"

Abby nods. "A few more days."

When Jeremy and Elena come over, Jeremy talks to Abby about her return to humanity, and Elena tugs Bonnie back into the school building. It's eerie how quiet it is in there. Bonnie's been in this school plenty of times when it's as deserted as it is right now, usually under some kind of supernatural threat, but now there's light that spills in through the doors on either end, casting pale distortions on the floor. And there's no threat today. It's been a very quiet couple of weeks since they killed Klaus. She's still not used to it.

Bonnie passes her diploma from hand to hand, waiting for Elena to speak. She's the one who wanted to come in here, but she seems to have lost whatever it was she wanted to say. Finally, Bonnie says, "So-"

"I'm sorry about everything," Elena blurts. " About Stefan and Damon, all of it. I'm sorry. I understand why you did it."

When Bonnie doesn't say anything right away, Elena takes it as her cue to continue. "Me and Jeremy are doing a lot better," she says, "but me and you haven't really talked. I want us to though. I thought maybe we could hang out this summer and see what happens? See where it goes?" Bonnie tries to think of something to say, and she's taking too long again because Elena keeps going. "We've been friends forever. I don't want to just...give up. I-"

"I don't think it'll be like it was," Bonnie says. "I don't think we can go back to the way we were. Too much has happened."

Elena nods her head in understanding. "Okay. That's okay. I was prepared for that." She takes a faltering step back, like she's going to leave.

"I don't want to give up either," Bonnie says. "I just don't think we'll be the friends we were, not entirely. I think we've changed a lot, that's all. The people we were before don't really exist anymore, I guess. I want to be friends, Elena, but we're not going to be those friends. Not right away, maybe not ever again. That's all I'm saying."

"I get it," Elena says. "I know that. I just...I just want to try. I don't know, I guess I just think we owe it to those people we used to be. I don't want to just call it quits, and they wouldn't want us to."

"No, they wouldn't," Bonnie agrees. "We'll see what happens."

They've got a whole summer in front of them before they go their separate ways. There's a lot that can happen in that time.

Elena's smile is a relieved one. For a minute, Bonnie thinks she may hug her, but she doesn't. Bonnie doesn't have to awkwardly suggest that they rejoin their respective families outside because the doors burst open, and Caroline enters in a whirlwind of blond hair and fruity body spray.

"I've been looking everywhere for you two," she says. She grabs both of their hands to pull them back outside with her where the transition from the cool comfort of the school to the humid heat of the outdoors is jarring. "I want a picture of the three of us. I found this really cute frame last week that it's gonna go in."

Caroline arranges them, Elena on her left and Bonnie on her right, and barks at Sheriff Forbes to take their picture.

* * *

Summer comes and goes a lot quicker than any of them thought it would. Jeremy and Elena go to Denver and come back, Tyler and Bonnie make multiple trips to California first to find their apartment then another to attend their freshman orientation. Then the morning comes when they're leaving for good, both of them being driven to the airport by their parents where they meet outside to say their goodbyes.

"Everything's gonna be fine, Mom," Tyler assures her as he slings his backpack onto his shoulder. In a few hours they'll be in California, making their way to their apartment (two bedrooms, two bathrooms and approved of by both of their parents). "You're gonna be fine, I'm gonna be fine."

Carol nods her head, but she looks like she's trying to convince herself of that. "If you think something's wrong," Tyler adds, "just call Jeremy. He'll take care of it."

Mystic Falls is a magnet for dangerous, undead problems, but even if Tyler's going to be gone, Jeremy will still be close, and he's going to keep up with his hunter whatever just in case something comes up. Even though the whole summer went by without a single hitch, none of them are so sure there won't be any. Elijah and Rebekah haven't made any reappearances and the Mikaelson mansion remains totally empty though the state of it has been questioned by prospective buyers who are all similarly disappointed when they learn it's not for sale. Bonnie said that Rebekah and Elijah may be planning to return in a hundred years or so, but Tyler's always a little surprised when he doesn't find either Original on his doorstep, looking for vengeance.

"I know," Carol says. "It'll just be strange not having you in the house." As soon as they're back together, back in that house, Tyler's leaving again.

"I'll be back for Thanksgiving," he says. "And you can call me whenever, everyday if you want to."

"Don't say that," she says. "I might actually do it."

"Well, that's fine," Tyler says, pecking her cheek. He already knows she will. Bonnie's probably gonna be fielding a few calls a day from her dad, and Tyler doesn't mind talking to his mom if it means they both get to reassure the other that they're alive.

"Call me when the plane lands," he hears Rudy saying, "and when you get to the apartment. I want to know everything's okay."

"I will," Bonnie promises. She's been making all kinds of promises to Rudy ever since he agreed to let them have the apartment, citing the financial benefits of the arrangement and laying down all kinds of rules that he has to know he's gonna be in no position to enforce anyway. But Bonnie's made note of all the times he's going to be in California for work so they'll know when to pretend to be following Rudy's orders.

When they finally get free of their respective parental units, Bonnie and Tyler head through security and board their plane, picking two seats near the middle where a bearded man has already claimed the seat by the window and has made himself comfortable enough to sleep.

"Finally," Bonnie says as she buckles her seat belt into place. "Never thought we'd get here."

"I knew we would," Tyler says. "Eventually."

Soon after they plane is moving down the runway, and Tyler remembers the sign as his mom drove out of town: You are now leaving Mystic Falls.

* * *

**Six Months Later**

"Yeah, I'm here," Jeremy says into his phone, cradling it between his shoulder and ear as he hoists his duffel bag out of the cab and fumbles with the cash to pay the driver.

"How's it look?" Elena asks as the cabbie thanks Jeremy and climbs back into the car. It disappears down the street as Jeremy turns to look at the building, tilting his face up.

It's old but nice, in an old, nice kind of way. And it's tall. Behind his shades everything is tinted gray but he can tell it's beautiful. Bonnie said she was the one who picked the place, and it definitely shows. Tyler probably would have chosen some bland looking condo that was built two years ago.

Jeremy relays this all to Elena who hums to herself on the other end. "Tell them I say hello. And tell Bonnie I say Happy Birthday. Don't forget to give her my present."

"I won't," Jeremy says. She's been reminding him since she dropped him off at the airport earlier this morning, certain he's going to forget to give her the brightly wrapped package that Elena's been going on about for two weeks now. "Bye."

Tyler mailed him the key to the apartment two weeks ago, telling Jeremy he could come right in whenever he arrived just in case they weren't there. He carries it in the palm of his hand as he takes the elevator up to the third floor where he follows the curving hallway to apartment 3C.

Jeremy knocks on the door first, and he hears movement from behind it. Tyler opens the door soon after and a giant grin spreads across his face.

"Gilbert!"

He hasn't changed, though he's a bit more tan than when he returned home from Christmas. He pulls Jeremy into a hug, one that would be crushing if Jeremy's body wasn't supernaturally inclined to handle it.

"Lockwood," Jeremy says over Tyler's shoulder, matching Tyler's smile with one of his own.

"It's good to see you," Tyler says, releasing Jeremy and nudging the door closed with his foot. "How was the flight?"

"Fine," Jeremy says as Tyler takes his bag from him and carries it into the apartment. He drops it near the sofa and turns around to watch Jeremy examine the place.

It's nice. And it looks like Tyler and Bonnie live there. She must have handled most of the decorating, but Tyler's got a flat screen and that's really all he really needs. There are books. Books on books on books. Some of them are grimoires that he remembers from Bonnie's bedroom, and some are just photo albums. There are textbooks littering the kitchen table, a mix of political science and anthropology texts, most of them on the occult. Framed photos show Bonnie and Tyler kissing in snow back in Mystic Falls this past Christmas, and there's another of them hugging and laughing in front of a leafy, green tree on campus. Those are right beside the pictures of Jeremy and Bonnie sharing a smoothie after graduation and dancing at Caroline's last birthday party. There are pictures of Bonnie and her family (Rudy, Abby and Lucy in various locations on various occasions) and Tyler with his mom. There's even one of Tyler with a group of guys wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Greek letters.

Jeremy picks the picture up. "Is this Alpha Beta Hybrid?"

Rolling his eyes, Tyler plucks the photo from his hands and puts it back down. "Shut up."

There's also a dog.

It's taken Jeremy this long to notice him. He seems to blend in with the black couch because his fur is so dark and he's small enough to curl up against one of the ends and lay there. His eyes are just as black as the rest of him, and he just sits there. Staring.

"What the hell?" Jeremy says.

"Yeah," Tyler says, following Jeremy's gaze. He scoops the dog up where he looks even more miniature in Tyler's arms. "This is T.J."

"You have a dog and you named it T.J," Jeremy says slowly. "You never mentioned him."

"Yeah, he's new. We got him a couple days ago. Bonnie wanted to name him Tyler as a little joke, you know," he explains. "Because he's a dog and I'm...you know, part dog."

"Hilarious," Jeremy deadpans as he reaches out to scratch behind one of T.J's ears. He seems to appreciate the attention and licks Jeremy's fingers approvingly when he withdraws them.

"I wanted to name him Jeremy," Tyler continues with a wide grin. "You guys kind of have that same dopey look sometimes."

Jeremy laughs, but still says, "Shut up, Lockwood."

"Me and Bonnie came to a compromise," Tyler says. "And now he's Tyler Jeremy."

"That's a terrible name."

"That's why I shortened it to T.J," Tyler says, letting the dog wriggle out of his arms to settle back down on the sofa.

"Where is Bonnie?" Jeremy questions.

"She had to drop off an assignment. First paper for this class she's taking, Modern Magic."

That's so _very _Bonnie."

"Come on," Tyler says. "I'll give you the tour."

It's the first time Jeremy's been here, after having to cancel the plans they've made before due to sudden epiphanies regarding school, college visits, family weekends with Elena and picking up extra shifts at the Grill. But Tyler and Bonnie have been back to Mystic Falls plenty of times, and Jeremy's seen the apartment (at least bits and pieces of it - the kitchen table, the bed's headboard, the couch) while over video chat. Tyler shows Jeremy the bedroom, done up in various shades of blue.

"How's Elena?" Tyler asks as he shows Jeremy the guest room, which is supposed to be Tyler's room since they told her dad they definitely weren't going to be sharing a bed. When Rudy comes to visit, Tyler moves in there to keep up the illusion that he and Bonnie aren't sleeping together though Jeremy's pretty sure Rudy knows he's being lied to and has simply accepted there's nothing he can do about it.

"She's good," Jeremy says. "She has a new boyfriend."

"Oh yeah," Tyler says. "Bonnie mentioned something about that. Vampire?"

"Nope," Jeremy says. "He has no idea she's one though. Not sure when she's gonna get around to telling him." As far as he's concerned, as long as the guy doesn't try to kill him he's already worlds ahead of Stefan and Damon.

Jeremy hears the jangle of keys and the front door opening. Bonnie's voice follows soon after. "I'm back! Is he here yet?"

"Yeah," Tyler calls. "You're late."

Bonnie sighs deeply and then Jeremy hears her greeting T.J. in a high pitched voice in which none of her words sound like they're being said by an adult. She eventually joins them in the bedroom where she immediately flings her arms around Jeremy's neck and plants a kiss on his lips. "How was the flight?"

"It was fine," Jeremy says, pecking her lips again. Her hair's grown a bit longer, and it might be a little bit lighter than it was in December. She's taken to wearing Qetsiyah's pendant pretty often again and the Bennett bracelet Jeremy gave her though the two pieces seem to clash. "Happy birthday," he says.

"Thank you," she says. "You didn't get me anything did you? I told you not to."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Jeremy says. Elena must have told Bonnie about their financial issues because as soon as Jeremy told her he'd be there for Bonnie's birthday, she was going on and on about how Jeremy should save up his cash. And he is, but he still has a present, however unorthodox and X-rated it may be. But that'll be later.

"Do you want to see what Tyler got me?" Bonnie says, squeezing his hands.

"Is this supposed to make me feel bad about not getting you a present?" Jeremy questions. "Because you _told_ me not to."

"I know," Bonnie says, "but Tyler's is so nice. Look." She rounds the side of the bed and picks up a painted canvas. The colors are all deep and rich, depicting a brown skinned woman standing alongside a black wolf with red eyes, one hand resting atop his head. "Isn't it nice?" Bonnie says. "He didn't even tell us he was trying painting."

"I didn't know if I'd be any good at it," Tyler says, leaning against the wall and pretending that he's not a little embarrassed which he is, but he won't admit it. "Put it down. We have to take Jeremy to the beach."

* * *

For all their talking about the beach, Bonnie and Tyler haven't utilized it very much, but they couldn't let Jeremy come visit and not drag him here. And T.J. hasn't been to the beach either. Not that they know of anyway. He seems to be enjoying himself, jumping in the sand and running around Tyler's legs.

Bonnie stands in the water where it rises up to cover her feet. She likes it this way, feeling close to nature, with sand working its way between her toes, turned into mush by the saltwater. She closes her eyes and feels the ocean spray against her face, where the breeze stirs her hair from her shoulders. The sun's beginning to set, staining the sky orange. She likes it better this way than the sunny afternoons. Night time on the beach is more magical somehow.

She hears Jeremy as he comes to stand at her side. "You got a dog," he said.

"Yeah," Bonnie says, glancing back to where Tyler is playing with T.J. He throws a squeaky toy a few feet away, and the terrier almost flips himself over in his pursuit of it. "Seemed like a really normal thing to do, and he was just walking around by himself. _I_ wanted him, but he seems to like Tyler more."

"Dog thing?"

"Maybe," Bonnie says with a shrug. "You'd think the whole being dead thing would freak him out, but T.J. doesn't mind. Maybe he just likes Tyler. He likes it when I do magic though."

Levitating things, creating the illusion of another dog, identical to him. Those are the only times T.J acts like Tyler doesn't exist. Otherwise, he's only got eyes for him.

"So," Bonnie says, moving to put her arms around Jeremy's waist, "how's home?"

"It's fine," Jeremy says. "School sucks even more than it did before, but I expected that." And works sucks, too. But that's the Grill. It's gone downhill since Matt found his new job on campus."

That Bonnie believes. Matt might as well have been running that place on his own.

"It's nice out here," Jeremy says. "And you guys seem happy."

"We are," Bonnie says. "We miss you though."

"I miss you guys, too." He leans to press a kiss to her cheek. "Happy birthday, Bonnie."

"You already said that."

"Yeah, well," Jeremy says. "Two times seems like a good amount. What did Elena get you?" Jeremy asks. "She was sure I was going to forget to give it to you."

"A book," Bonnie answers, "on the Salem witch trials."

Bonnie had been recommended the book by her professor, but she'd warned Bonnie it was hard to find. There had only been a few hundred copies printed. Bonnie had only mentioned it to Elena once, and that was months ago, but then there it was, in bright blue wrapping paper and accompanied by a note about finding a bookseller who was open to Elena's _suggestions_ of giving it to her at a good price and _Happy Birthday_ written in Elena's elegant cursive.

"Come on," Bonnie says, reaching for Jeremy's hand and tugging him back to Tyler.

* * *

Tyler's never thought of himself as much of a dog person, but T.J's established that Tyler's feelings are irrelevant, and he makes himself comfortable on his lap. T.J. perks up a little bit when Bonnie and Jeremy come back to sit down with them, but he doesn't move from his spot on top of Tyler's thighs.

"Did Bonnie tell you we ran into a vampire the other day?" Tyler asks as Bonnie reaches to pet T.J.

"No, she didn't," Jeremy says, looking offended by the omission. "What happened?"

"It was like two weeks ago," Bonnie says, in her defense. "Not _the other day_."

"It was a day other than this day," Tyler says. "Anyway, we had to kill him."

Jeremy's eyes grow wide. "You killed a vampire and didn't tell me?"

"It didn't seem like a big deal," Bonnie says with a shrug. "It went really fast. Tyler just took his head off, and we went to dinner. No big thing."

It did go pretty fast. It would be more than a little unforgettable if he hadn't been their first vampire sighting since they came here. In the beginning, they looked for some, just to feel out their surroundings and see what they were dealing with, but they never came across any. Then just when they weren't looking they run into one with giant eyes and a bad haircut.

"He tried to feed on this girl," Tyler explains. "I think he thought he'd just come for us next but that didn't work out so well for him. I think it was a sign."

"Of what?" Jeremy asks.

"That we're all settled in," Bonnie says. "That we officially live here."

It's true. They've christened California with the blood of a vampire. It's home now.

* * *

That night Bonnie wakes up naked on top of Tyler. It's not the first time she's woken up this way, but it's been a while since she's woken up this way with Jeremy on Tyler's other side, lost to the world. She moves as gently as possible to pull on Tyler's shirt - or maybe it's Jeremy's shirt, it's hard to tell in the dark - and she goes into the kitchen.

T.J. stirs from his spot on the couch when he hears her come in and gets up to sniff at her bare feet, taking a kindly lick of her toes as she goes to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. Since he's arrived, they've let him sleep in their room with them, but there was no way Bonnie was going to let him be in there while they were having sex.

She fishes her cell phone out of her purse and sits down on the couch, dialing Elena's number. It's late, but Elena stays up pretty late these days anyway. She answers on the second ring, and she's whispering which means Elena and the new boyfriend is taking advantage of Jeremy's absence.

"Hey," Elena says. "How's it going?"

"Good," Bonnie says, pulling her knees up to her chest. T.J hops up next to her and curls up alongside her toes. "I just wanted to thank you for the book."

"You're welcome," Elena says. Bonnie can hear her smiling. "Did Caroline call you?"

"Yeah, this morning. She couldn't talk long though. She had cheer practice, but she sent me something."

"What?"

Bonnie looks to the coffee table where the big, pink and black polka dotted box still sits. "Lingerie," she answers.

Elena laughs. "_Why_?"

"I don't know," Bonnie says, laughing as well. "She said she saw it and she thought of me." Typical Caroline.

"What was the thought process?"

"Don't know that either," Bonnie says, leaning forward to look at the box's lacy and deceptively complex contents. "She said it reminded her of a very sweet witch dominatrix."

"Oh my God."

When they hang up (Elena having to go back to bed before the boyfriend wakes up and realizes she's gone - because Elena's pretty sure he's beginning to think she's weird with all the slipping away to drink blood that she's been doing) Bonnie returns to the bedroom where Tyler and Jeremy haven't moved an inch. She crawls on the bed, easing into the small space between them.

The hybrid, the witch, and the hunter.

End


End file.
